


A Case of Immortality

by auberus, Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Category: Highlander: The Series, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Crossover, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, case-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 04:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17655713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auberus/pseuds/auberus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: A serial-killer strikes in NYC, and brings Matthew McCormick, FBI agent, into the orbit of Detective Goren.





	A Case of Immortality

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written most of ten years ago, and has been sitting on my hard drive through two changes of computer. I have no plans to wrap up the last bit at the end, and the story hasn't been beta-read or edited.

The sergeant manning the desk at One Police Plaza gave Matthew's ID a perfunctory examination, handing him a visitor's badge and giving directions to Major Case without bothering to look up from the novel he'd been reading. Matthew tucked the leather folder back into one of his inner coat pockets and put the badge around his neck. He'd been in literally hundreds of police precincts during his latest stint with the FBI, but had expected the NYPD to be a little more security conscious. With a shrug, he ignored the waiting elevator and started up the stairs.

Major Case's bullpen was surprisingly quiet and well-organized. Various detectives glanced up at him when he entered, but went back to their own work with nothing more than slightly suspicious glances in his direction.

He corrals the closest detective, who merely looks at him with that blank cop stare behind which anything could be happening.

"Special Agent McCormick, FBI. I need to speak with your captain."

"Deakins is in his office," the man shrugged, and pointed. "I'll go tell him you're here. You can wait there." He indicated a row of generically uncomfortable hard plastic chairs, in which Matthew decided against sitting. He leaned against the wall instead, taking the opportunity to glance over the files he'd brought with him from Quantico.

"... methodical and careful." Goren paused in his assessment of the killer they were trying to find when the door opened, one of the other detectives giving them a briefly apologetic look.

"There's a Agent McCormick from the FBI to speak with you, Captain."

Deakins raised an eyebrow, though he knew the FBI would probably take an interest in the case. Not when Goren had been certain from the time they took this case on that whoever it was had killed before.

"Show him in, Madison." He settled back in his chair as Goren and Eames shifted to watch the door, waiting for McCormick to join them.

Captain Deakins wasn't alone in his office, and Matthew spared the two detectives a nod before turning to the man and producing his credentials.

"Captain? I'm Matthew McCormick, with the FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit." It had been the BSU when he'd first joined its ranks, but too many cop jokes about the 'Bullshit Unit' had prompted a name change. "I was told that your unit was investigating the death of Rachael Montgomery?" The captain nodded, his eyes wary with the usual suspicion that local cops usually felt when presented with the possibility of FBI interference . "We believe that Ms. Montgomery's death is connected with at least eight other homicides up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and as such, I am here to formally request that we be included in your investigation."

Goren watches McCormick, his expression faintly curious as he studies him. There's something subtly off about the man - though what it is, he can't put his finger on yet. "Included?" He moves away from the window where he'd been standing, tilting his head slightly. "I mean, it's just that usually you guys take over when you decide you want a case."

Deakins doesn't interefere in Goren's approach, having worked with him long enough to recognize his detective has latched onto something, even if it isn't necessarily about the case itself. Whatever it is, he can run interference for Goren later, if Eames doesn't do it on her own.

McCormick shrugged, and offered up a smile that Eames suspected was meant to be disarming. It probably worked most of the time, even on hostile cops. The man really was quite extraordinary looking, and the suit he was wearing definitely wasn't the usual off-the-rack unofficial uniform of the FBI. If it hadn't been hand-tailored for him, she'd be very surprised.

"Oh, I've the necessary authority to do just that, Detective, and I would - if I were more interested in seeing my face in the papers than in making an arrest." To Eames' New York-trained ears, McCormick's courtly Southern drawl sounded exotic, almost foreign. "However, the BAU is more than ordinarily pressed for resources at the moment. I've nearly a hundred and fifty open cases on my plate at the moment, and the Major Case squad is possessed of an admirable reputation and solve rate. I'd be foolish to ignore such a resource, especially as you're infinitely more familiar with the city than I."

"Huh." Goren watched him a moment longer, his expression not giving away his thoughts. Despite McCormick's drawl, he'd wager the man grew up in Britain rather than the US.

"What can you give us?" He'd worry about the puzzle of Agent McCormick later, when he needed to step back from the case for a moment. It would provide a good distraction when he needed it.

"Why don't you use the conference room, and you two can bring me up to speed later." Deakins stood, giving his detectives a look he knew they'd read easily, dismissing them for now, sending them off to work on the case without getting him caught up in Goren's process.

"Thank you, Captain," Matthew said, and motioned politely for the detectives to precede him. 

The conference room was empty of everything save furniture and the omnipresent coffee pot, to which Matthew went gratefully. He'd been up for nearly forty-eight hours, with only a brief nap on the flight from Washington, and even his Immortal constitution was in desperate need of caffeine. Fortunately, there was a stack of disposable cups next to the machine, and he helped himself to one before turning to the detectives.

"May I pour either of you a cup? I'm afraid I didn't catch your names."

"Goren, my partner's Eames." Goren set his notebook on the table, shrugging at the question about coffee. "I'll pass on the coffee." He'd rather wait and get his coffee from a fresh pot, or from the cafe he usually got his morning coffee from.

The indifference with which McCormick drank what must have, by that time, been some seriously foul coffee, was typical of law enforcement officers, most of whom believed that caffeine should be available in I.V. form on a twenty-four hour basis. Eames was glad to be able to decline - she'd drunk worse herself in the middle of investigations, and had a feeling that she'd be doing just that before this one was over.

McCormick waited politely for her to sit before he did so himself. Apparently, the rumours about Southern gentlemen weren't completely outdated. He put the folders he'd been holding down on the table in front of him, and slid them over to a position roughly equidistant between herself and Goren. It was a clever touch. Most out of town investigators assumed Goren to be the senior partner. McCormick, apparently, wasn't the sort to make assumptions, despite everything she'd heard about the FBI as the last bastion of the Good Ol' Boy's club still remaining in American law enforcement.

"We've eight rape/homicides to which we can conclusively tie a single suspect. He left traces of saliva on each of the victims. Unfortunately, he's not in any of the databases. We've run him through NCIC, and through the military's servers as well. He also seems to be escalating. There were three months between each of the first five victims; the last three were only two weeks apart, and Ms. Montgomery's death occurred only eight days after his last kill, in Baltimore. I've the rough outlines of a profile written down - these were dumped in my lap three days ago, so I haven't had time to write it up properly yet. You're welcome to that, as well as to the contents of those files, so long as full disclosure goes both ways."

From an FBI agent, it was a generous offer, and Eames felt her eyebrows lifting in surprise. A glance at her partner showed that he felt much the same way. McCormick sighed.

"You should know that I've spoken with Declan Gage. Or, rather, he's spoken to me. At great length, once he realized that I was likely to be working with Major Case. Frankly, if you hadn't already been assigned to Ms. Montgomery's murder, I'd have requested that you be. Gage has a very high opinion of you, and while it's not as high as his opinion of himself, it's more than sufficient praise so far as I'm concerned."

"Of course," Goren replied to the offer to share notes, so long as they did the same, already starting to go through the files himself. With the rapidly decreasing time between victims, they were working under a deadline, and he wanted - needed - to get into this guy's head so they could catch him.

There wasn't any readily apparent similarity to his victims - no two the same age, body type, hair color, eye color - except that they were all female. No two kills even in the same jurisdiction, perhaps to make it more difficult to find him. Careful to make it hard to find him, and yet leaving that trace of himself...

"He's leaving the trace evidence on purpose." Goren knew that would be something a good profiler would probably have noticed already, and he glanced at McCormick, automatically watching his reaction. "He wants someone to connect his victims."

Matthew nodded. "I agree. The last page in the file is the part of the profile I've managed to get on paper. We're likely dealing with a white male between the ages of thirty and forty. He's physically fit - none of the victims were drugged, and the third, Angela Hoess, was not only an all-state basketball star, but had a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do. She fought him, too - there was peri-mortem bruising on the knuckles of both hands, and flesh under her fingernails.

"He could have used a gun, but I think he prefers to subdue his victims up close and personal. Add in the multiple stab wounds - from fifteen at the low end to thirty three for Ms. Hoess - and we're definitely looking at a fantasy driven by the UNSUB's sexual desires. He may or may not be unable to achieve arousal and/or climax under normal circumstances.

"There's been no effort made to hide the bodies; nothing that would indicate that he's at all conflicted about what he's doing. His escalation is probably less about losing control than it is about his increased enjoyment of his kills. He isn't getting sloppy, and we're not seeing any signs of mounting rage. The overkill with Ms. Hoess was due to his fury at her temerity to fight - especially if she marked him. None of the other victims managed to get fingernails into him, at least not deeply enough to draw blood." 

He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes as he tried to get back inside the UNSUB's head. "He's educated - college and probably some graduate work as well. Cultured. He likes to think of himself as a man of the world. He's not stalking his vics before his kills - but even though they appear random, they are not. He's choosing them, for reasons that are at the moment known only to him."

Opening his eyes, he refocused on Goren and Eames. "If we can figure out why, we'll be one very large step closer to catching him, but I've been immersed in victim profiles for the last week, and I'm no closer to finding a link than I was at first glance. I've a hunch that they're encountering him in some public place, possibly saying or doing something that sets him off, but again, even their personalities were drastically different."

He hated cases like this one. Eight hundred years' experience with murders had given him insights that most law enforcement officers never had the time to develop, but it never made the actual cases themselves any easier to bear.

"He's observant, methodical, and careful. Arrogant, confident he won't be caught, even though he's leaving a clue to connect all of the women." Goren pulled out the photos of each of the women, spreading them out in the order the victims had been found. There had to be a pattern in here somewhere, some thread they could follow back to the killer.

He started through the profiles, spreading them out, looking through them. Looking for something - a common vacation, a website they visited, the sorts of places they went. Anything. The only thing they didn't have any real information on was medical, and that would take a bit more effort to get their hands on, always did.

"Right now, we're trying to piece together the victim's final evenings," McCormick said. He looked tired, his eyes made darker by the circles beneath them, and fatigue deepening the fine lines at the corners of his mouth. He scrubbed one elegant hand across his face. "So far, there's been no connection, except that we can't do it. Two of the victims were married, but all of them spent their last evening alone. I'm willing to stretch my neck out and assume that at some point they encountered our UNSUB, and either said or did something that set him off."

"Maybe something they said to someone else." Goren pulled two of the files he'd already gone through back toward him, looking at the notes on a third. "Deborah Whitmore, Laura Thomson, and Sara Browning. Their friends all mentioned they'd talk to the cashiers when they were out shopping, like they were old friends. Ask about their families, their pets, their lives."

"Three of eight isn't a pattern," Matthew objected, but frowned anyway. "Of course, it's not necessarily the sort of thing that would always be mentioned, even by friends. I'll ask our field offices to re-interview the witnesses." He smothered a yawn in his hand. "My apologies." Rising, he crossed to the coffee machine and poured himself another cup, tossing it back as quickly as any of the rotgut alcohol he'd ever drunk with the various armies with which he'd served. "God, but this is foul stuff." He poured himself a third cup, and returned to the table. "Do you have the files on our last victim?"

"Right here." Eames flipped open the file, going through to the interviews with friends and neighbors. "Nobody mentioned anything about how she treated cashiers, but her roommate says she was supposed to be out buying groceries the night she disappeared. Just down the street. The cashiers there haven't all been interviewed yet, they're still on the list of witnesses to talk to."

"Mrs. Whitmore's husband mentioned that he'd asked her to pick up some milk and eggs on her way home the night she disappeared. A grocery store he says they always use, a few blocks from home. They found her car in the parking lot." Goren looked up from the files a moment, a speculative look on his face. It wasn't a pattern yet, but it was the only similarity that had held for more than two of the victims. A place to start, even if it didn't pan out.

"Would you prefer to use NYPD resources for the interviews, or shall I have our field office conduct them?" McCormick asked, taking a sip of his coffee and then wincing, presumably at the taste. Eames glanced over at her partner, surprised by - and a little suspicious of - McCormick's apparent consideration. That sort of behaviour was not typical of the FBI, or of any other federal agency.

Goren met Eames' glance before looking at McCormick again. "I'm surprised you asked." Not actually answering McCormick's question, not yet. That the man was even giving them the option made him wonder just why the FBI was being so cooperative. Or if it was just McCormick, not orders from the agency. "It's a bit odd, don't you think, that the FBI is willing to let the NYPD run the investigation? When they're certain it's connected to others?"

"The Bureau trusts my judgement," Matthew said mildly, leaning back in his chair. "I am the BAU's most senior field agent, and I have been given similar latitude in my investigations for quite a while. I assure you, Detective, that if my methods failed to get results, I would not be in my current position. I've yet to make an error in an arrest, and that is the sort of record, sir, of which even a bureaucracy will take note." Ironically, the closest he'd come was the contretemps with Carl a few years earlier - the one case he'd worked in which there truly was no victim. "So long as I produce either the killer or his corpse, I assure you that the FBI will not concern itself with my methods."

"Huh." Goren looked speculative a moment, filing away that bit of information with the discrepencies he'd noticed earlier, another piece of the puzzle that was Matthew McCormick. "We can handle the interviews with the clerks at Ms. Montgomery's grocery, and let the FBI handle the ones outside our jurisdiction." Better to get the information faster by letting others do the legwork, and make the connection that might help them find and catch this guy.

McCormick nodded easily, still with the same unconscious self-certainty he'd displayed while reciting his credentials. It went beyond the usual arrogance that came with a Federal badge. This was bone-deep, bred into him, Eames decided. He reminded her of some of the children of New York socialites who'd known nothing but privilege from the day of their births - except that there was something real behind it.

"I'll put in a call to the Assistant Director," McCormick said. "We'll get officers from the other cities to accompany our agents. I don't want to miss something because our men don't know the area as well as they ought." He reached for the file on Rachael Montgomery and flipped through it, his face impassive even when confronted with the crime scene photos. "Ugly," he murmured briefly. His expression never changed, but when he looked back at them, there was something in his eyes that spoke of outrage and of fury. "I am certainly looking forward to catching this one."  
 

* * *

Apartment of Tanya Davis  
9 October 2006

Eames knocked on the door of the apartment listed as the current residence of the cashier on duty the night Ms. Montgomery had disappeared, Goren next to her and McCormick on the stairs as they waited for her to come to the door.

"Yes?" The young woman - Tanya Davis - peered out, her expression wary.

"I'm Detective Eames, this is my partner Detective Goren, Major Case Squad, and Agent McCormick from the FBI. We're investigating the death of Rachel Montgomery. Can we ask you a few questions?" Eames held up her badge, letting Tanya get a good look at it.

"Um, sure. Just give me a sec to get the door." The door closed a moment, the rattle of a chain being removed audible before the door was opened again, wide enough to let them in. "Sorry about the mess. Can I get you guys something to drink?"

"Yes, thank you," Matthew said.  "Coffee, if you have it ready."  Not only was it the height of bad manners to reject offered hospitality, but a familiar act in a familiar setting would help Ms. Davis get rid of whatever lingering nervousness she might be feeling due to the presence of two police officers and an FBI agent in her apartment.

"Coffee will be fine." Goren gave her a brief smile as he settled onto the sofa Tanya waved them at, giving her space and a bit of time to relax. Watching her move around at the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment, offering that he would take it with sugar when she looked up to ask how they took it.

"It's kinda hard to imagine, Rachel being dead." Tanya handed them each a cup before getting one of her own, wrapping her hands around it tightly. "She came in for her usual grocery run on Thursday night. You know, milk, bread, butter." She looked down at her coffee, shaking her head. "It doesn't feel real."

"You knew her, then?  As more than just a customer?" Matthew asked, glancing briefly at Goren and Eames.  Three of eight victims might be coincidence.  Four was a pattern.  "Did you see her talking to anyone that night, or notice anyone following her out of the store?"

"She talked to everyone, that's just who she was. I mean, yeah, small talk, but she actually cared, you know? And she always said thank you, which is more than I can say for a lot of customers." Tanya snorted, a smile crossing her face a moment. "It was nice." She paused, thinking a moment before she answered the last question. "There was this one guy, just bought a candy bar. Left right after her, was watching her while they were in line a bit. Not enough to seem really creepy, but. I don't know."

"Could you describe the guy?" Goren set his cup on the coffee table in front of him, his notebook open to the most recent page for notes.

"White, kinda old. Paid cash. He had better nails than any guy I've ever met. Manicured, maybe? Didn't dress like most guys around the neighborhood, though. Looked a bit more like you guys, but he wasn't actually wearing a suit." Tanya shrugged, an apologetic smile on her face. "I didn't really take a good look at his face."

"How old is 'kinda old?'" McCormick asked, sipping at his coffee.  He had a point.  To someone in her late teens or early twenties, that could cover anything from forty to sixty.  He looked remarkably at ease in Tanya Davis' rattrap apartment, even in his five thousand dollar suit.  He held the chipped cup in his hand as easily as if it were a crystal decanter.  "My age? Older?"

"Um, older." Tanya let out a bit of a laugh, giving him a look of 'duh'. "Maybe like Detective Goren's age?"

Goren looked over at McCormick at the last question, curious why he'd used himself as a basis for comparison. He wouldn't have put McCormick's age over thirty himself, if he didn't know the man was a top field agent. Certainly he doubted Tanya saw him as all that much older than herself. Maybe good genetics, maybe not.

"So in his fourties?" Eames was making notes on her own pad, and glanced up from them at Tanya. "Did you notice what color his hair was? How tall he was?"

"Dark hair, I think. Six feet tall, at least. He was taller than I am, and I'm five-ten, anyway."

That sort of height is a good way to define a suspect, even if Matthew himself no longer towers over most mortals the way he used to do. 

"Did he say anything to you?" he asked, ignoring the too-sharp look from Detective Goren.  "Good evening, thank you, anything at all?  And if so, did he have an accent?"

"I asked him if the candy bar was all he was getting, he said no. It didn't sound like he had an accent, but you can't get much from just one word, really." Tanya looked down at her coffee again, looking miserable. "I wish I could be more help."

"Can you sit down with a police sketch artist?" Matthew asked, and smiled when Tanya nodded.  "We'll send her to visit you," he promised.  He didn't know the abilities of the NYPD's portrait artist, but he knew those of the FBI's, and had more than enough pull to guarantee a personal appearance.  "Anything you can remember, no matter how small, might be the clue that cracks the case."

* * *

Major Case Squad Room  
10 October 2006

Matthew frowned down at the paper in his hands.  The man portrayed in it was dark-haired, in his mid-forties, but hardly distinguishable from any of thousands of others of the same physical type.  There was nothing distinguishing about him - no marks, no scars.  A judge looking first at the suspect and then at the drawing would hardly grand a warrant, even for DNA.

"Well - this could be more helpful," he said, passing the sheet to Goren.  "Though I suppose if we manage to get DNA confirmation first, it might make a difference."

Goren looked at the sketch for a moment before adding it to the spread of papers on the conference room table. It hadn't been the description of the face that had stuck out in his mind as he mulled the interview over, and studied the files more. "She said his nails were manicured. That he dressed well, but not in a suit." He didn't look up from the files, a frown of concentration on his face. "But you'd expect the murders to be concentrated in fewer cities, or across the country if he was a businessman."

"Businessmen aren't the only ones who travel," Matthew pointed out.  "Though I agree that the travel pattern is probably work-related.  He's too arrogant to make out of town trips specifically to commit murder; too self-centered."  He shrugged, leaning back in his chair.  "I'm willing to bet that when we catch him, we'll find that he hasn't killed anyone in his hometown.  I don't think he'd do anything as prosaic as trade, either."  It's an old prejudice, from the days when gentlemen didn't dabble in such things, but he's found that it's still surprisingly strong.  "He'll be in law, or academia - something that lets him look down on the majority of his generation."

"He won't be in law enforcement, though," he added.  "It's too blue-collar for him."

"Academia," Goren said quietly, a thoughtful frown crossing his face. He flipped his notebook where he'd listed the names, locations, and dates of the murders. "All the murders occurred in cities with major campuses. A guest lecturer, maybe."

"It shouldn't be difficult to make the necessary inquiries," Matthew said.  "And if he's sticking to the East Coast, we can make certain assumptions that will most likely turn out to be accurate.  The sciences are more prominent on the West Coast; politics on the East.  I don't see our man accepting an invitation from anything but the best."

"Well, whatever he does, or whoever he is, we'll do better after dinner and a night's sleep." Eames pushed away from the table, where she'd been staring at the same report for the last thirty minutes. She would have gone for more coffee, and kept working, if the coffee pot hadn't been empty. A reminder that they'd been at this for hours, and needed a break. "I'm buying."

They didn't often eat dinner together, but at the moment, she doubted Goren would let go of the case long enough to eat properly without someone else to make sure he did so.

The thought of food was almost startling, especially once Matthew realized it had been almost twenty-four hours since he'd ingested anything but coffee.  Immortality prevented ulcers and damage from temporary starvation alike, but eating regularly was still vital.  He didn't like the thought of allowing Eames to pay, but knew better than to try and dissuade her.

"Done," he agreed, "so long as you allow me to take care of the drinks and the tip."  It was the least he could do, given that his various bank accounts held millions, and that his salary from the Bureau was sure to be greater than hers.  He glanced over at Goren, who was still apparently absorbed in the various files strewn across the table.  "Detective Goren?  Dinner?"

Goren nodded, closing his notebook after a jotting down one more note, and pushing away from the table. "Dinner sounds good."

"Good. And not just the diner around the corner, Bobby." Eames smiled, heading for the squad room to grab her purse and her coat. "A real dinner." She was willing to let McCormick take the drinks and the tip, though she wasn't going to let Goren take on any of the bill, not this time.

They found a restaurant serving northern Italian cuisines that had tables free and reasonable prices, seated a table near a window. Simple food that was varied enough to make Eames think about maybe coming back again some time. Just to try something new when she had a chance.

The menu seemed to be composed mainly of modern variants of old Italian recipes, which made ordering easier than it would have been in Eames' 'diner around the corner'.  After more than eight centuries in law enforcement, Matthew had gotten more than a little tired of fast food and its equivalents.

Once the waiter had disappeared with their order and returned with their drinks, Matthew leaned back in his chair, picking up his glass and lifting it in the direction of Goren and Eames. 

"To catching the bastard," he proposed.

Eames echoed the toast as Goren raised his glass as well.

* * *

Major Case  
13 October 2006

Goren set the last of the lists down on the table, a faint frown on his face. There were still too many variables to narrow the suspect list to one - they had four possible suspects, and three of them were on lecture tours out of town now. He almost hoped their guy was the one who hadn't left town yet, but he doubted he actually was. And the killer was likely to strike again soon, in the next few days.

He grimaced, and ran a hand over his face. "Four potential suspects, three in other jurisdictions. This guy is going to kill again before we catch him." Even if they could narrow it down to one in the next few hours, there would be enough time for the suspect to kill again before he was apprehended.

"More than likely," McCormick agrees, without bothering to glance at the papers covering the table. "Jurisdiction's not really a problem, though; the investigation crosses state lines, which puts it squarely in FBI territory." He frowns then, and reaches for one of the lists. "He's never killed twice in the same place, though - which means that we can probably eliminate the one who's lecturing at Cornell."

It's callousness on a scale that Eames isn't quite ready for, but then, she remembers McCormick saying something about a hundred and fifty open cases. The callousness is probably necessary - but it doesn't make it sit any easier.

"You're awfully calm about the idea." It sounds like an accusation, and she's not sorry that it does. McCormick just lifts his eyebrows.

"I could throw myself about in an agony of guilt, but it won't help. Narrowing down our list of suspects will - and maybe we will be able to catch him before he kills again. I doubt it, though, and I've not lasted this long at the BAU by setting myself up for disappointment."

"He's not going to stop until he's caught, and it's been almost a week since Ms Montgomery was killed. He's going to kill again soon, in the next few days, if he hasn't already." Goren picked up the file again. "And whoever his victim is, she's going to be someone who shows some sort of kindness to those our suspect thinks are socially beneath almost everyone else. A cashier, the receptionist at the gym, the person who bags her groceries."

Leaning back in his chair, Goren shook his head, his gaze on the papers that were spread over the table. "There's something we're still missing."

Matthew nods. There's something basic, something fundamental, missing from their profile of either victims or killer. It's been nagging at him for days now, but he can't quite put his finger on what it is.

"I need more coffee," he says, leaning back in his extremely uncomfortable chair. "Or a break in the case. I agree that we're missing something vital - but I also think we've gotten as much as we can from the information available." He frowns. "There are some irregular gaps between the killings. The first four occurred on a fairly regular pattern - once every three months, or thereabouts. Then there's a two year gap before the next one. I don't see our man being able to abstain for so long - do you?"

"No." Goren tapped his pen against his notebook a moment, a frown on his face. "There's at least one murder, and as many as eight, missing in the middle. Somewhere outside the scope of our earlier search." There was the possibility that their suspect had been in prison on other charges, but Goren had the feeling he'd never been caught. He was still a little too reckless, with the traces of saliva left on all the victims, before and after the gap.

"I agree." Usually, this sort of gap is explained by a prison term, but instinct says that this man has never been incarcerated. 

"Outside the United States?" Eames suggests. "South America, or maybe Mexico?"

Matthew shakes his head slowly, struggling to explain in words what he's feeling in his gut. "No - that would be... slumming it, I think. I don't see our guy as traveling somewhere specifically for the purpose of killing, and based on the places he's been, there's nothing in either Central or South America that's prestigious enough to attract him."

"More likely Europe; old universities, with an excellent reputation." Goren scoops up his notebook, with the short list of suspects, talking as he headed back toward his desk, and the phone. "We need to find out if any of these professors traveled outside the US, and where." It would take time to get information back about possible murders that fit their suspect's M.O., and Goren knew it would be too late for someone, but he had to at least try.

"Let me," Matthew says, then remembers his manners in time to add, "if you don't mind? I've some contacts in Interpol, and at Scotland Yard. It's late over there, but I can probably get results." If old acquaintance doesn't work, he can always bargain with news of Corwin's whereabouts - or of Amanda's. Neither of them will let themselves be caught, and neither would mind being used for this sort of purpose. It's setting himself up for burglary, of course, but this is worth it. That none of his Interpol contacts know him as Matthew McCormick is irrelevant. Voices don't age quite the same way that faces do, after all.

Goren's own contacts are more limited, and the faster they can get the information, the fewer people they risk dying in the meantime. "Be my guest." He waves a hand at his phone, letting Matthew take his chair to make the phone calls, sitting on the edge of his desk instead.

De Cheveaux in France is certain to be awake at this hour. Matthew spent five years with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he and de Cheveaux had been involved in more than one case of suspected espionage on behalf of the USSR. At no point did the Frenchman ever seek his bed before five in the morning - so his is the number that Matthew dials first.

As expected, Robert answers almost immediately. He sounds exactly the same, and Matthew is grateful for the distance offered by telephone wires for more reasons than one.

"_Quoi?_" Clearly, Robert is in an irritable mood.

"_C'est moi, Robert. Matthew_."

"Which Matthew? I know several." Just as clearly, the years have done nothing to mellow the Frenchman's acerbic personality.

"From the Vyshenko case. Or am I so easily forgettable?"

"Matthew Briand!" To that individual's dismay, de Cheveaux switches to English. "My boy, how have you been?"

"Still breathing," Matthew laughs. "You?"

There follows a five minute litany of complaints in heavily-accented English about the stupidity of de Cheveaux's superiors, underlings, and equals. Matthew is laughing by the end of it, in spite of himself.

"But what can I do for the DIA?" Then, smile audible in the man's voice, "or are you calling to check up on me?"

 

"I'm afraid it's business," Matthew tells him. "I need to know which of these men have traveled in Europe; also when and where." He reads off their short list of suspects.

"No details?"

"I'm afraid not. Not this time," Matthew says, almost regretfully.

"You owe me," de Cheveaux says cheerfully. "Call you at the old number?"

"No," Matthew says hastily. That identity is almost twenty years dead. He rattles off his cell number, and de Cheveaux chuckles.

"An appointment in Washington? Is this a promotion or demotion?"

"More a lateral move," Matthew says. "I appreciate the help, Robert."

"But you are busy," the man finishes. "Fine; I will call you when I have the information you require. Au revoir, mon ami."

"Au revoir." Matthew hangs up, hoping that Goren hadn't overheard any of the other end of that conversation.

Even just listening to half the conversation had been interesting, and Goren makes a mental note to check on the case Matthew had mentioned, just as a curiosity. He's still not sure what's off about the agent, and right now seems a good time to prod at the puzzle he represents, at least until they get more information.

"Sounds like you had luck with at least one person. Interpol?" He's assuming so, as Matthew was speaking French at the beginning.

"DGSE, actually," Matthew says, aiming for casual. The DGSE is the French equivalent of the CIA, only with domestic powers that the boys at Langley can only drool over. "I knew he'd be awake, and his contacts are at least as extensive as Interpol's; probably moreso. The rest of my contacts won't be awake at this hour, but Robert's an inveterate insomniac - has been for twenty years." As soon as the words leave his mouth, Matthew knows he's slipped. He smiles easily, and tries to cover his mistake with explanations. "Besides, if he's as good as he says he is, he'll have details on all of our suspects for us before the rest of them are stirring."

Goren raised an eyebrow, doing the math in his head. Matthew would have been a teenager, maybe in his early twenties at the oldest, in the time frame he's suggesting. At least, from the information Goren has, and that wouldn't make him old enough to have known someone at the DGSE well at all. Not in a capacity that would have him sitting here now.

"That'll be useful," he says, instead of commenting on what he's sure is a slip of the tongue. "We should probably order out some dinner while we're waiting on that information. Take some time to eat and come back at this afterward."

Matthew doesn't sigh in relief, but he comes close.

"Takeout sounds like a plan," he agrees. "My treat. Any preferences?"

"Chinese will be fine." Goren mostly wants the time to step away from the case, and perhaps poke around at some of the clues that Matthew's given him about his past. Maybe find something that will click about why he feels off.

Matthew collects everyone's order and places the requisite phone call. Delivery takes less than twenty minutes, and Matthew is happily digging into the most authentic Chinese food he's seen in decades less than five minutes after that. One of the best things about New York City is the availability of real ethnic cuisine. DC is much the same, but he's rarely there these days, and won't be there at all in a few more years. Special Agent McCormick is running out of time.

"It shouldn't take Robert long," he says, after swallowing a mouthful of truly excellent dim sum. "He's very good at what he does."

Goren takes the time to check the internet for anything he can find that connects the names Vyshenko and Matthew in France. Finding old news articles that involve a case of espionage and agents Robert de Cheveaux and Matthew Briand. There wasn't a picture to go with the name, but regardless, Goren suspected he knew the face. It was just curious why Matthew had been using a different name, and how he'd managed to keep looking as young as he did now.

The arrival of the food distracted him, and he joined Matthew and Eames in the conference room again, eating his food as he turned over the information he'd found in his mind. At least, until a cell phone went off.

Matthew swallows his current mouthful, and flips his phone open. "McCormick."

The conversation doesn't last long. Matthew's FBI superiors are more interested in transmitting information than demanding results, for which Matthew thanks his record. Still, the news is grim - and costs Matthew his interest in the food spread out on the table in front of him.

"Yes, sir," McCormick is saying. There's not even a hint of smile left in his face. Eames can guess what he's hearing on the other end of the line. 

"No, sir. Tell Greensboro PD that we'll be there by morning. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Goren and Eames. Yes, sir, Gage's Goren. No, sir." The voice at the other end of the line must be fairly high up in the FBI hierarchy. McCormick doesn't strike her as the 'three bags full, sir' type.

"I'll call the airline as soon as this phone call is finished," he says, and smiles thinly. "Of course I'll keep you updated." He nods, as if the other person can see him. "Goodbye." When he hangs up, his expression is bleak.

"We've got another one. Greensboro, North Carolina." His mouth twists, though Eames can't identify the emotion behind it. "The body was found on the campus of Guilford College, not far from the President's house. I promised the Director that we'd be there by morning - unless you two have other plans?" It's a challenge, plain and simple, and it's enough to divert Eames from the fact that the Director of the FBI just made a personal call to a field agent. Still, she looks over at Goren for an answer.

"No, no other plans." Goren shook his head, setting down his food. The puzzle of Matthew is pushed to the back of his mind, something to worry about another day. Another body, narrowing down the list of suspects again, at a cost he didn't like.

Matthew nods. "Greensboro it is, then." Ten minutes later and there are three business-class seats waiting for them on the next available flight to North Carolina. He'd have selected first class, but that might have raised questions he doesn't want to answer.

"We've twenty minutes to make it to the airport," he informs the detectives, closing his phone. "Luckily, there's an international airport not too far outside city limits." Sixty years ago, Greensboro was dirt floors and dirt roads. Now, it and High Point and Winston-Salem are all one metropolis, city lights as far as the eye can see. "I assume you've both got an overnight bag packed?"

Goren's only contained street clothes, but he could always have the suit cleaned if he needed to, and the street clothes were relatively nice. It doesn't take long to grab it as they're heading out the door to get to the airport.

* * *

They disembark before the rest of the plane's passengers, thanks to an arrangement between Greensboro's police department and the airport authorities. The rookie waiting for them inside the terminal is almost fatally embarassed by their arrival, and Matthew has to revert back to the manner he's used with countless raw recruits over the centuries to get any sense out of the young man. Eventually, though, it becomes clear that the elite of the Greensboro police department are awaiting them at the main station, and they and their luggage are put into a car headed in that direction.

It's the detective waiting to greet them when they pull up that makes Matthew flinch. It's half a second of reaction, and is limited to widened eyes and a brief intake of breath - but his blank expression doesn't deter Detective Justin Williams.

"Matt?" Justin's eyes are wide, hands already reaching out before he realizes that if he himself is in his mid-fifties, there's no way his former partner could still be thirty-something. Still, he persists. "Matt - what in God's name are - how the hell?"

It's like tearing out his own heart, but Matthew manages.

"I'm sorry?" FBI cool, disinterested and uncaring. "I think you have me mixed up with someone else. Special Agent Matthew McCormick, FBI" - the faintest stress on the first name, because McCormick's not someone anyone would think of calling 'Matt' - "and these are Detectives Goren and Eames, NYPD."

Goren notices the flinch, adding another piece to the puzzle of Matthew - and he'll have to find out what the detective believes Matthew's name to be - in his head. He's beginning to suspect there's more to it than simply aging well, after that reaction.

"Pleasure to meet you, Detective... ?" He offers his hand to shake, giving Justin a quick smile.

"Williams. Justin Williams." Justin's having trouble tearing his eyes away from the FBI agent who looks like Matthew Barnes born again - except that Matt would be Justin's age by now, and Agent McCormick looks not a day older than Matt was when he took two bullets that were originally meant for Justin. "Apparently our latest homicide is connected to your case." He can hear the strain in his voice, and see the way Goren's looking at him, eyes careful and sharply interested. He can see the careful disinterest on McCormick's face, too. The man looks enough like Matt to be his ghost, down to the 'I can't hear you' look he's wearing. Matt used to look the same way when they were turning a blind eye to something.

"That's what we believe, yes. We need to interview possible witnesses - anyone who she might have interacted with at a store, or a fast food restaurant, maybe a diner." That would give them what they needed to be sure it tied into their case - and narrow their suspect list down to two, both professors with lectures at local universities. The one at Guilford was more likely, but they couldn't be sure, not yet.

Justin is reeling out facts as easily as he'd done twenty years earlier, and Matthew can't bloody stand it. It's too much like the partnership he walked away from two decades ago, and while at the time he'd considered it a fair exchange for Justin's life, at the moment he's full of what-might-have-beens. Justin's still not wearing a wedding ring.

Fortunately, Justin's captain is waiting only a few paces beyond Matthew's one-time partner, and his expression is grave enough to warrant a personal explanation from the FBI. Matthew introduces himself and launches into the sort of explanation that the Bureau wouldn't normally lower itself to give, because it's the only thing he can think of that will get him away from the look on Justin's face.

When Matthew heads for the captain, pulling him aside, Goren waits long enough for Justin to finish giving him the facts on the case before he speaks. Giving Matthew enough time to get out of earshot, and into his explanation; he doesn't want the agent to overhear his question.

"If you don't mind my asking, who did you think Agent McCormick was when you saw him walk in? You greeted him like he was familiar."

Justin shakes his head, still staring after Agent McCormick. "He looks - Christ. He looks just like my partner, only it was twenty years ago, and Matt's dead." The next part is beyond hard to say, but he manages - largely because he's forcing himself not to react to anything at all. "Matt - Detective Barnes - he took two bullets for me. I was in Charlotte, then." He shakes his head again. "Even if he'd made it somehow, he'd be my age, and Agent McCormick isn't. It's just a seriously uncanny resemblance, and it threw me for a few minutes." It's still throwing him, but that's not something he's going to admit to an NYPD detective. "I watched Matt die. He fucking bled out on a patch of dirty pavement. The resemblance just bothered me, that's all. It won't interfere with my doing my job."

"Uh-huh." Goren nodded, flicking a glance in Matthew's direction a moment, a faint frown on his face. That was something he hadn't actually expected to hear, and it didn't make the puzzle any clearer, not yet. He doesn't bother to correct Justin's assumption that he was concerned about his ability to do his job, either; if Matthew hadn't told him he was still alive, assuming he was the same person, he must have had a reason to do so.

It's...weird, seeing Matt's double; weird enough that Justin can't even blame this New York detective for any doubts he might be having. Even the drawl is the same; deep South, Georgia, maybe, with hints of something else - and the way he's not-quite-schmoozing the captain - Matt was an expert at distracting the idiots in charge. Had been. Justin shakes his head, forces his attention back to the case at hand.

"The FBI's letting local cops play in one of their serial killer investigations? That's pretty unusual."

"It's an unusual case." Goren shrugs. "He said the BAU was pressed for resources, and we have a good solve rate." Admirable had been the word he used, and Goren knew his own percentage of closed cases was far higher than anyone else he was familiar with. A measure, perhaps, of luck, to go along with his skills, and refusal to give up on a case.

Justin grimaces. "Still, that's not the way the FBI usually operates, pressed for resources or not." He's dealt with them often enough to know that. McCormick - Justin can't use the man's first name, even in his own head - must be an unusual agent.

* * *

Matthew finishes filling the captain in, and decides that, painful or no, he should probably go and collect Goren and Eames. If he'd known Justin would be here, he'd have had the BAU send another agent down to deal with this particular body. Goren, especially, is smart enough and thinks far enough outside the box that he's a real danger.

"So," he says, rejoining the other three, "who's our victim this time?" He has to force himself to keep his expression neutral, and the look on Justin's face doesn't help.

"Marie Vetters. Twenty-three. We don't know much more than that - we saw the alert on the NCIC, and the captain decided to wait until you got here before doing the legwork."

Matthew grimaces. He'd expected something of the kind, based on his brief conversation with Captain Helman, but hadn't expected it to be quite that bad.

Goren watches Matthew as he comes back over, watching his expression for a long moment. There's a hint of something forced in there, that he doesn't exactly have the time to work out now, while they're in the midst of the case. "No interviews of potential witnesses, nothing before we got here, except processing the crime scene?"

If Matthew knows Justin - and he does, though he can't admit it - that's not all that's been done. He looks expectantly at the other man - and then realizes that it was probably a mistake to do so. Still, Justin doesn't disappoint.

"That's all the captain wanted done. I was off yesterday, though, so I did the initial interviews with friends and family, and tried to trace our victim's movements. Didn't get far - but I found a cashier at a gas station across from the school that remembered her, and a bartender at the Red Oak who thought he did. Far as I can tell, she went to work, then out for a drink by herself before heading to a party at Guilford. Stopped at the gas station before going on campus - the cashier remembers seeing her walk across the road - but she never made it to the party."

"The cashier, did she remember seeing anyone else at the gas station around the same time as Ms Vetters? Maybe someone watching her, made a purchase soon after she left?" Goren had noticed the expectant look from Matthew, and Justin's response to it, like they were used to working together - or just hit all the right notes, but Goren's money would be on a prior working relationship. A little thing that made him wonder just what Matthew was hiding, that he didn't want an old partner knowing he was the same person.

"Nothing we can use," Justin says. "She gave descriptions of the three customers who were there after our victim, but only one of them was in the store at the same time, and she didn't remember much about him, except that he was 'kinda average, you know?'" McCormick looks like he's trying to hide a smile, and Justin has to look away. He's spent every day of his life grateful for Matt's sacrifice, and seeing his doppelganger is like a cruelty from a particularly vengeful god. They even have the same facial expressions. He swallows, and keeps going. "Dark hair, mid-forties - she didn't remember any identifying features, though."

Not much use, unless she could identify one of their two suspects from their photos. "What about Ms Vetters, did she remember anything in particular about her? How she acted, maybe?"

"She said that Ms. Vetters was nice. That's why she watched her walk across the street. She called Ms. Vetters the kind of customer that makes the whole day 'not so bad, y'know?'"

"The sort who offer a thank you for doing your job, who maybe ask how your day is." The same sort of person every other victim had been. "A kindness that our suspect doesn't like, or doesn't understand. That he thinks isn't deserved, perhaps, or maybe that he sees as a flaw in the personality of his victims."

"It fits," Matthew agrees. "Our guy thinks he's one of the elite, and not just because he's a killer. That just adds to his sense of worth. He thinks he's special, different - and when a woman he admires proves herself a human being by talking to someone he considers beneath her like they're actually worth something, he reacts."

"And yet, he's careful enough not to kill more than once in the same jurisdiction. And not just because he's able to move on, but because he thinks he's smart enough to keep anyone from connecting the murders. That he's gotten away with it for as long as he has just makes him more confident." A confidence that would lead to his downfall, of that much Goren was certain. Hopefully before he killed again.

"It's why he's so confident," Matthew says sourly. "I'm willing to bet he's never had anything like a serious run-in with law enforcement of any kind, and that any speeding tickets he's gotten have been dismissed. He thinks he's God, or close enough to it as to make no difference." He shakes his head, disgusted. "We'll get him, though. Hopefully the surprise of being caught will get him to talk."

Goren shook his head. "Even if he talks, he's not going to want to talk to just anyone, and certainly not local law enforcement." The arrogance of the man, he was going to want to talk to someone he perceived as high enough up the social and career ladder to matter. "He's got to believe that whoever he's talking to, whoever is interrogating him, is someone more important that a mere underling."

"I think I can handle that," McCormick says. Justin's eyebrows go up involuntarily - then he shakes himself. He has to stop reacting to McCormick as if he were Matt. Just because Matt wouldn't have put himself forward like that.... His train of thought is derailed as McCormick speaks again.

"The BAU has a pretty heavy reputation, and as its senior field agent, I can bring that into play fairly effectively."

"Now all we need to do is catch this guy." Eames had been quiet during the conversation, just watching and listening. "We've got two suspects on the list, maybe we can interview them both."

"That's an idea," Matthew says. "Their reactions to being interviewed ought to tell us a great deal. Our guy is going to be indignant, irritated, put out by the idea of sacrificing his valuable time to the FBI - and moreso if he has to sacrifice it to a local police department." He smiles. "Of course, both of them will probably react that way at first. Academics - especially full professors - can get seriously obnoxious when faced with law enforcement."

"He's also going to be confident, arrogant in his certainty that we won't actually be able to connect him to the murders. Even if he's offered the opportunity, he's not going to ask for a lawyer, because in his mind, he didn't do anything actually wrong. Illegal, yes, but not wrong." Goren is almost looking forward to the interviews, to seeing how the last pieces fit together in this case. If they can fit them together well enough to convince a DA to file charges, in any of the jurisdictions under which the case falls.

"We still have to catch the bastard," Eames points out. McCormick's sour expression is a testament to how right she is. Justin's been trying to stop interpreting the FBI agent's expressions in the same way he would have done Matt's, but it occurs to him that maybe he's on the wrong track. The similarities are far greater than the differences.

Goren nodded, already opening his notebook to the suspect list. "There are two professors guest lecturing at universities in the area, that are on the top of our suspect list. William Thorpe and Charles Applegate." Though with both of them having other lectures on their tours in the next couple of days, it was entirely possible one or both of them had left town already.

"They both fit the physical description, too," McCormick says, visibly annoyed. "Maybe our guy planned it that way. He certainly has the brains to have done just that."

"It's certainly something that would be prudent, to reduce his chances of getting caught. Even though he's arrogant, he's smart enough to realize that there's always a chance of getting caught." Not that their suspect entirely cares about that risk, or appreciates just how much his arrogance is increasing those chances. Of that much, Goren's certain. How an interview will change the time before their suspect strikes again, that he's not as certain of.

"Mm. I think that chance is becoming less and less important as time goes by," McCormick says. "The longer he goes uncaught, the more invincible he thinks he is."

Justin nods, almost unconsciously. McCormick is as good at figuring out psyches as Matt used to be.

"He was arrogant enough to follow our last victim across the street to Guilford even with a witness," he offers.

"And he paid enough attention to Ms Montgomery for a witness to notice that he did." Goren flicks a glance at Justin again, mentally noting his reactions to Matthew. "His confidence in his ability to avoid capture is going to lead to more mistakes than just those." Enough of a mistake for them to catch him before he killed again would be nice, but Goren wasn't going to lay money on it.

"Then we need to find those mistakes." McCormick is all business now, and far too like Matt for comfort. "We'll start with interviewing our suspects. No holds barred. You're right, Goren, neither of them is going to ask for a lawyer, so we take the gloves off." He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and flips it open.

"I need everything we can scrape up on William Thorpe and Charles Applegate. ASAP." McCormick looks annoyed. "I'm in Greensboro. Yes, North Carolina. Call me when you have it, and I'll give you a fax number." He hangs up without waiting for a goodbye - and that's Matt all the way - impatience with fools, and a surprising tolerance for everyone else.

Along with the information from Matthew's friend in the DGSE and the interviews, whatever can be dug up by the FBI should be enough to eliminate one or the other as a suspect. There's wait time on getting the information, but that can be taken up making sure they have the rest of the evidence and interviews from this murder. Making sure they are as well-armed as they can be before going into the interviews with the suspects, and gathering what information they can from those.

Matthew's phone provides an ill-timed interruption, and he pulls it out of his coat pocket, annoyed.

"McCormick."

"I'm looking for Messr. Briand."

The voice is familiar - and unwelcome, given that he's sitting in a car with three other law enforcement officers, one of whom has seen him die. Goren's brain is a worse threat - but Matthew can't afford to ignore de Cheveaux, whether he'd like to or no.

"C'est moi," he says.

"A name change?" De Cheveaux sounds impressed. "That is success, mon ami."

"And the information I asked you for?" Matthew's in no mood to be sociable.

"I have dates and names for you, my friend." De Cheveaux is notoriously indifferent to social currents. "Give me a number and they will be on their way."

Matthew's tempted to swear, but refrains. "Will you be awake in an hour?"

"_Certainment._" Of course. De Cheveaux never sleeps; Matthew should have known better.

"I'll call from the hotel, then." He'd give the Frenchman his email address, but that would give away far too much. "You can send it all to me then."

"D'accord." De Cheveaux hangs up, and Matthew closes the phone gratefully. Navigating between this life, the one he'd had as Justin's partner, and the one he'd taken up just afterwards is going to give him a heart attack before this case is over.

"Was that your friend at the DGSE?" Goren looked over at Matthew, raising an eyebrow. "That's a rapid turn around on the information." He'd caught a bit of the other side of the conversation this time; he knew he was right about the caller on the other end, unless Matthew had another friend who spoke French.

The DGSE doesn't know how to play anything but hardball," Matthew says, smiling despite himself. "Imagine the CIA and the FBI merged into one agency, with no need to worry about public opinion, and you'll be pretty close to understanding how effective they can be when they think it matters." Add in the fact that Robert's been one of their best since the Soviets ruled Moscow, and this particular turn-around time is actually somewhat pathetic. "Robert's got contacts in every intelligence agency in Europe, and he owes me one or three."

"Huh." Goren looked thoughtful a moment before shrugging. "Wouldn't having him email it to you be faster? Instead of waiting for us to go back to the hotel to fax it?" Or faxing it to the local police, since they'd be working out of the local precinct.

"Probably," McCormick says. He's wearing the same expression that Matt wore when he didn't want to talk about something. It's enough to make Justin curious. "It won't get read any faster, though."

"It's just a bit odd - most people these days would ask for information emailed to them, rather than faxed." Goren shrugged. "Even if it wouldn't get read faster."

"I'm old-fashioned," Matthew says dryly, then adds, "Besides, I prefer hard copies. Printed pages have more weight to them than an email, in more ways than one." Hopefull, that will put paid to Goren's curiosity - though it probably won't. Still, better Goren's curiosity than de Cheveaux's - and if he'd given the latter an FBI email address, there would have been uncomfortable questions, of the sort that he wouldn't have been able to answer in front of Goren, Eames, and a partner who'd seen him die.

"I can understand that." Goren was still curious, but again, there was a sense that there was more to this than Matthew wanted Justin to know, and he wasn't so curious as to push him now.

* * *

There isn't much more they can get from the witnesses, and they find out from the universities that both Applegate and Thorpe have already left, their lectures over. It's frustrating, but not entirely unexpected. Hopefully, the information from De Cheveaux will give them a better idea which of the two they should be more concerned about. Goren's pacing as they wait for the fax, frustrated by the lack of real progress they've made while in Greensboro.

"It shouldn't be much longer," Matthew says, just as the fax machine announces noisily that it won't be much longer at all. He crosses the room and stands over it, waiting. De Cheveaux has a nasty habit of including personal notes in this sort of business transaction. Sure enough, the first page has nothing to do with the investigation, and is something that would cause serious problems for Matthew had he not picked it up before anyone else could get a look at it - and if it weren't in French.

The rest of the fax is in French as well, and for all of Matthew's gratitude that de Cheveaux's note was in that language, the fact that the rest of it is is more than a little annoying.

"I can translate," he says, resignedly. "I should have known. Robert believes that English is a barbarian language."

The fact that the entire fax is in French isn't as intriguing as Matthew's quick reaction to the first page, picking it off the machine before Goren could do more than notice it was there, even though he's standing right next to the machine. "What does he have to say about Applegate and Thorpe?" He'll ask about the other page in a moment, once they have the information about their suspects.

"They've both traveled." Matthew scans the page, reading the French as easily as he would English. He spent centuries fighting and negotiating with France, and knowing the language had become a necessity hundreds of years ago. "Applegate's been to Berlin, Paris, Oxford, Cologne - all the important university towns. Thorpe's not as widely traveled. He mostly stuck to Germany - Berlin, Cologne, Nuremburg, Frankfurt, and so on." Matthew scans the rest of the fax. "I'd say it's Applegate we're after; there are records of homicides in five out of seven cities, all unsolved, and all done by knife." He hands the pages to Goren, keeping only the first page for himself. "Take a look."

Goren scans the pages, nodding to himself. "It looks like he is. Let me check something..." He opened his notebook, putting the pages from the fax with other papers concerning the case, flipping to the schedule of lectures for their suspects. "He's due to speak at Duke University on Monday, and again on Thursday." He looks up at Matthew. "What was on the first page of the fax? Anything else useful?"

He doesn't think it's just a cover page, not with the speed at which Matthew snatched it up.

"Just Robert, being himself." Matthew hasn't had a chance to do more than glance at the first page, but it was enough to tell him that letting anyone else see it would be a very bad idea. There are references to the case he and de Cheveaux worked together, and to the fact that Matthew has gone from chasing Russian spies to hunting down serial killers. Robert clearly sees it as a demotion, and the ribald jokes may be in French, but the end result is plain as day: Robert knew Matthew years ago, and though the world has changed, Matthew himself has not.

"Oh. So you know him well?" The implication that De Cheveaux knew Matthew well also, well enough to be something other than purely professional - the only reason Goren could think of at the moment for that sort of statement with a reluctance to share the first page of the fax. "Was he a mentor of some sort?"

"Of a sort." Matthew has to duck his head to hide a smile. Twenty years ago, de Cheveaux had been so green as to be almost useless, and as Matthew Briand, he'd given the Frenchman a brief and painful initiation into the world of espionage. Neither of them had enjoyed it very much, and that they'd ended up finding the Russian mole in DGSE had been more luck than anything else - that, and that Matthew knew the Russians almost as well as he did the French. No matter how skilled the spy, there are native mannerisms that cannot be entirely suppressed, and Vyshinsky had never gotten over the habit of smiling like a Russian, or of straightening cigarettes that would, in Russia, have bent under the heat and weight of the ember that lit them.

"Huh." Goren watches Matthew for a moment. "You said it was twenty years ago, when you met him?" Twenty years ago, and the Vyshenko case that Matthew had mentioned - where Matthew Briand had been the senior agent, and Robert De Cheveaux the junior. There's enough from what he's overheard Matthew say, and what he's researched to make the question he's just asked one impossible to answer correctly, not with the answer Matthew's just given him.

"About that long," Matthew says, silently cursing his own carelessness. There's no graceful way out of this, and he's not about to start killing mortals to protect his secrets, no matter how badly he wishes he could.

"Twenty years ago, Robert De Cheveaux was a junior agent with the DGSE. His partner was a Matthew Briand." Goren closes his notebook, watching Matthew intently. "There aren't any pictures that I could find, but I'm sure if I asked, someone could find one, and I bet it would look just like you do now. And if I looked even further, I bet I could make the connection from a Matt Barnes - was Matt short for Matthew? That's the common thread between the identities, isn't it?

"What I haven't made sense of yet is how you could have taken two bullets, and died in front of your partner as Matt Barnes, and gotten up and walked away from that to become Matthew Briand. There's nothing I've run into that could explain that." It doesn't mean there isn't an explanation, and right now, Goren's glad Eames is upstairs, and Justin isn't in the business center with them. For all that he wants to know what Matthew is hiding, he doesn't want it to cause problems with anyone else involved in the investigation.

Goren's much, much better than he should be, and Matthew can't help wishing that he were willing to kill mortals in the cause of self-preservation. It won't change anything, though; he's been run to earth, just like he's been afraid he would be since law enforcement started to find its feet two centuries earlier. The only available route is to give Goren everything, and hope that the man has as much integrity as he does brains. It's risky, but he's made this play before and it has yet to fail him.

"You won't like it," he warns. Mortals never do.

"You haven't aged in at least twenty years, you've done an excellent job of hiding who you've been while working in law enforcement. I might not like it, but it's better than keeping secrets." Goren tucked his noteboook under his arm. "I give you my word I won't tell anyone, not unless you give me a reason to need to."

The promise is seriously meant; eight centuries are enough to give Matthew that much certainty. He doesn't like it, any more than Goren will probably like the explanation - but he really hasn't any other choice.

"I'm Immortal." The words are no easier to say than they are to believe. "I've been in law enforcement since before there was a name for it." Memories of Corwin, and of the unfortunates who'd died without Immortality to fall back on crowd the space behind his eyes. "Twenty years ago, I was with the Defense Intelligence Agency; a year before that, I took two bullets for Justin." There's no point in denying anything, and the truth will serve all of them better in the end. "I can't die - or rather, there's only one way I can. I don't age, and a bullet to the heart is nothing more than an inconvenience. I've been chasing murderers since the thirteenth century. The first one I took down was my own - a lance sharpened when it should have been blunted. I've been in America since the Revolution." He runs out of words. Goren will believe him or not, depending on his nature, and nothing that Matthew can say will change things; not anymore.

He's gone as far as faith of any sort will allow.

Goren's silent for several minutes, letting the information sink in, and fitting it into the puzzle that is Matthew McCormick. There's no doubt that Matthew believes what he's saying, and Goren's certain that he can find the reports to back up the death of Matt Barnes from two gunshot wounds. Immortality, though, is a lot to take in as a concept.

"How long have you been Matthew McCormick?" It's the only question he can think of to ask at the moment, though he's sure he'll have more later.

"Not long. Fifteen years, maybe?" Matthew has to think back to be sure of his answer. "Fifteen years. I haven't got much longer before I'll have to change identities. This is probably my last case." It's definitely his last case, with Goren and Justin and de Cheveaux all mixed together. He'll probably end up in Alaska chasing poachers, after this; it's one of the only places in the United States that doesn't require extensive documentation. "The BAU was still in its infancy, anyway," he continues. "I'm not a profiler in the normal sense of the word; my insights are based on experience rather than psychology." It's almost a relief to share the truth with another cop, like putting aside his sword after a very long day.

"Where will you go next?" Goren frowns a bit, tilting his head sideways. "You're a good cop, no matter where you draw your insights from." The sort of cop who'd be good in the NYPD, if it weren't for the fact that he'd be known to more than just Goren there. Eames, and Deakins, and anyone else who paid attention at Major Case.

"Somewhere provincial," Matthew says, not quite laughing. "Somewhere I won't have to worry about running into old parners." Or about helping out old students. Corwin's taken ruthless advantage of Matthew's position at the Bureau. "I might go back to England, or head to Russia. They've nothing there but organized anarchy, and they could probably use some help." He shrugs. "I'm not going anywhere until we've laid hands on Applegate, though. That's an interrogation I'm looking forward to." He doesn't think the distraction of their current case will put an end to the awkward questions, but it's still worth a try.

Goren grins, shrugging, the expression not really one of amusement. "You were born in England, than?" It made sense of Matthew's accent and mannerisms, though Goren had been thinking Britain - Britain because he hadn't even imagined that someone could be old enough to have been born in England before it became Britain. "It's just I'd been thinking you were raised in Britain, despite the really good Southern drawl, when you first came to Major Case to help us with the investigation."

Matthew nods, impressed despite himself. If he'd realized how intuitive Goren really was, he'd probably have been more careful around him. "Yes; in Salisbury."

"And the way you talk, the manners, your ease with authority without needing to put everyone else beneath you... that's not just recent, is it? You were raised in the aristocracy, the nobility. You said it yourself, the first murderer you hunted down was your own. A murder that occured with a lance, in the thirteenth century? Not just anybody is going to have died like that."

Matthew laughs. "Very true. My father was Duke of Salisbury, and I inherited his title when he died. Law enforcement used to be the sole province of the nobility, and I suppose I never managed to outgrow my interest in it. My teacher still despairs of me; she says I'm going to get caught." He sobers. "I suppose she has a point."

"Your teacher?" Goren tilted his head again, brow furrowing a moment. "A mentor? After you were murdered, when you found out you were Immortal?" That he referred to her as still alive, that she is concerned Matthew will get caught... and that women in thirteenth century England wouldn't often have been teachers to the sons of nobility, if at all. All little bits of information that not everyone would have put together as quickly, or even necesarily have noticed.

Matthew nods. "Experienced Immortals usually play mentor to the newer ones. It's the closest thing we have to a family that doesn't fade away with every generation." He smiles. "I didn't take very kindly to the idea of being taught by a woman, but Cierdwyn soon knocked some sense into me. And I gave her less trouble than my first student gave me." He shakes his head. "You might even have heard of him. He's moderately infamous in law enforcement circles - Cory Raines?"

"The bank robber who gives his money away to charities. At least, according to rumour. No one's ever been able to find the evidence he's done so, or been able to make charges stick." Knowing the connection now between Matthew and the legendary Cory Raines might explain why evidence never manages to make it to trial, when it's found at all. "You can't let him get convicted, or someone's going to notice he's Immortal too."

"Tell me about it." Matthew rolls his eyes. "I spend a significant portion of my time getting Corwin out of one scrape or another. Usually he just gets himself killed and escapes that way, but the advent of tasers and rubber bullets has started to cramp his style." He sighs. "He does give most of the money away, though. He likes to claim that he was the inspiration for Robin Hood."

Goren chuckled, grinning a bit. "He sounds like he would be, at least for some of the tales." Perhaps not all of them, but that wasn't exactly important. "I don't think he's been in New York, not recently." Not while Goren's been in the NYPD.

"Not for about thirty years," Matthew says dryly. "He has a habit of stealing from people who offend his sense of right and wrong, and there are some members of the Mafia who would quite like to introduce him to cement boots and the bottom of the Hudson. I told him I wasn't fishing him out of any more rivers, so he's stayed away from the city."

Nodding, Goren is silent for a moment. "I'll probably have more questions later, after we've caught Applegate." And only while there is an expectation of privacy, that no one - not even Eames - is going to overhear the conversation.

"I'll be happy to answer them," Matthew tells him, and is surprised to find that he means it. The entire thing has gone much better than he had any right to expect; of course, he hasn't had to explain the Game yet. That tends to be the hardest part of Immortality to accept.

The conversation has given Goren plenty to think about, and none of the information is anything he can't verify through other sources. Immortality isn't something that he quite understands the purpose of, but he's not going to argue it's existance.

* * *

They hadn't gotten to Duke University soon enough to prevent another murder, a petite grad student with as much fight in her as Angela Hoess. Now only another corpse at the morgue, with grieving parents coming in from Georgia to pick up the body. Applegate was just sitting down for breakfast Sunday morning when they went in with local police officers and campus security to arrest him.

"Charles Applegate, you are under arrest on ten counts of murder." One of the local officers is relishing putting the cuffs on a serial killer, a grim smile of victory on her face as she reads him his rights.

Applegate looks very like the photograph drawn by the sketch artist in New York, a fact that makes Matthew smile. It's one more nail in the coffin they'll be constructing for the bastard. The arrogant contempt in Applegate's expression makes Matthew's fingers twitch, and makes him long for the days when this sort of behaviour was punished swiftly and finally. It's almost enough to make him nostalgic for the rack.

"Thank you, Officer," he says, stepping forward to take custody of Applegate. "I'll take him from here."

"And you are?" Applegate looked over at Matthew, all but down his nose at the agent.

"Special Agent Matthew McCormick, Federal Bureau of Investigations." He uses the full phrase rather than the acronym, starting the psychological attack they'd discussed in Greensboro. "Behavioural Analysis Unit. I've been looking forward to having a chat with you for quite a while, Dr. Applegate." He keeps his grip on the man's shoulder firm but is careful not to exert too much pressure. He wants Applegate in prison, and doesn't want the man to have any excuse to complain about his interrogation.

Applegate is smug, certain they don't actually have enough to convict him, on any of the murders, much less all of them. Nothing which will prevent him from being able to induce a reasonable amount of doubt as to his guilt. "I can't imagine why, I've done nothing wrong."

The smug arrogance in his expression and bearing, the confidence in his voice, it's what Goren's expecting, though he doesn't show any of that in his expression. Nothing but a sober expression, with just the faintest hint of curiosity.

"Ten dead girls." Matthew can hear the threat in his own voice, and doesn't bother trying to hide it. As he steers the man down the stairs and towards the car, he keeps talking. He needs to break through that arrogance if he's going to get a confession out of Applegate. "And that's just in America. I'm going to make sure that you stand trial in at least one state that still uses the electric chair. Lethal injection would be way too easy for you." He glances over at Goren. "Virginia still uses the chair, don't they?"

"Yes, they do." Goren keeps up with them easily, though he leaves it to one of the local officers to open the door of the car. "Although I believe they give the condemned their choice of the electric chair or lethal injection. I'm sure we can convince the Department of Corrections to make sure Dr. Applegate is put into the electric chair, whatever his desired method of death might be."

"I didn't do anything wrong," Applegate repeats, but he sounds just a touch less arrogant this time.

"I'm sure you feel that way," Matthew tells him coldly, and puts his hand on top of Applegate's head to push him into the back of the car, despite the temptation to let the bastard hit his head on the roof. "Get in," he orders, feeling the man's muscles tense. "Unless you really want a go at me. I'm not an unarmed woman, though - I think I'm probably a little out of your weight class." That earns him a look that should incinerate him where he stands, but it also prompts Applegate into getting in the car without any melodrama. Matthew wishes he could wash his hands, but he settles for climbing into the driver's seat and starting the car.

Goren takes the passenger's seat, settling in for the ride to the local precinct. Falling in on the far side of Applegate from Matthew to bracket the man as they lead him to the interrogation room, closing the door behind him.

Applegate watches Goren for a moment before he turns his attention back to Matthew, visibly dismissing the other man. "The shackles are unnecessary."

"They're staying on," Matthew says, pushing Applegate into a chair. "You're a multiple murderer." He smiles unpleasantly. "Besides, you need to get used to them. You'll be wearing something like them for the rest of your life." He takes the seat across from Applegate. "So. Let's start with Deborah Whitmore."

"Who?" Applegate frowns, a moment of irritation crossing his face at the refusal to remove the handcuffs. "I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name."

Goren remains quiet where he is by the door, just watcing Applegate and his reactions. Noting the frown, and the irritation in his expression - he sees the refusal to remove the cuffs as a deliberate affront to his position, which it is. A way to wear at his arrogance and his confidence.

"The woman you killed in Boston." Matthew keeps his voice flat and relentless. "Or do you not bother to learn their names? You raped her, and stabbed her seventeen times. Did she scream? Try to fight? Beg for her life?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Applegate remembers her, and the pleasure of watching her die under his hands. It's not something he intends to share with just anyone - and he's not about to talk about it when there are underlings listening, those who aren't worth the time to explain this to.

"I can see you remembering," Matthew tells him. "It's a good memory, isn't it? What made you pick her? Who was it that she treated with courtesy - a cashier, a waitress, a bartender? It infuriates you, doesn't it?" He blinks, feigning a sudden flash of insight. "She was rude to you, wasn't she? Turned you down, maybe?"

"When I decide to approach a woman, I have never been turned down." Applegate settles back in his chair, a bit of a smug smile on his face. "I never approached anyone by the name you provided, so there is no chance she might have turned me down."

"Do you approach women?" Matthew asks. "Or do you just kill them? Can you even get it up without a knife in your hand? I doubt it, personally. I've taken down any number of killers like you, and none of them were anything like sexually normal." He curls his lip, letting some of the disgust he feels show on his face. "They're all...subhuman. I have no doubt that you're just like them."

There's a moment of sheer fury on Applegate's face, before he leans forward, his voice dripping with contempt. "You're like every other fool who's joined law enforcement. Just a simple-minded plebian who adheres mechanically to rules created by the ignorant masses. Denigrating your superiors out of fear and hate for those who are more intelligent than you could ever aspire to be."

"Is that why you kill them? Because they're inferior? Or because you thought they were superior and were furious to find you'd misjudged them?" The insults are more amusing than anything else. They're also a good sign; he's getting to Applegate, pushing through that wall of superiority and smugness and getting at the furious, insecure center that makes him a killer.

"I have yet to find a woman who is anything more than a base creature, foolish and fleeting." Applegate shrugs, leaning back again. "I won't lower myself to consort with such."

"But you'll rape them and murder them," Matthew retorts. "Probably because you can't get them any other way." He smiles. "I'll bet women see right through you. They realize how ineffectual you actually are. That well-developed sense of superiority is nothing more than a defense against the certainty that you're not even as much of a man as the people you like to tell yourself you look down on."

"If I want a woman, I can have her. That I have discriminate tastes doesn't mean that I am unable to attract any. Merely that I do not rut like someone like you." There's a clear note of anger in Applegate's voice this time that he can't supress.

"Even if you could get a woman, could you get it up without stabbing her?" Matthew lifts a sardonic eyebrow.

Applegate glares, affronted and irritated at the insinuation that he's incapable of having sex without violence. "Certainly not. I am not a necrophiliac." He'd killed them afterward, enjoying every minute of it. The blood, the screams, the pleading.

"My mistake," Matthew says. "Afterwards, then? While they're crying and begging for their lives? It must give you a real sense of power. Is that your favourite part? The begging? Or is it the blood?"

"I'm sure you're obsessed with the gory details of such things. I'm not the sort to indulge that sort of vulgar curiosity." If he could decide what was his favorite part of it all.

"I just want to know why you do it," Matthew says. Applegate hasn't flat-out denied anything for a while now, which is a good sign. "You're pretty good at it; it took us a while to catch up to you." Flattery might work better than aggression.

"Why I do what?" Applegate relaxes a little, shrugging. "I travel because it's more enjoyable than remaining in the same place all the time." Because it takes longer for anyone to make the connection from one woman to the next, though that they've done so demonstrates that there's at least one intelligent individual among the rest.

"Why do you kill?" Matthew asks. "I've been chasing serial murderers for fifteen years; you've been killing for almost as long as I've been with the FBI. Most killers don't have that much control. They get careless; you never did. It's impressive."

"If you can prove that I am the one who murdered those women." Applegate shrugs. "Certainly such a person would have to be intelligent, and meticulous. Familiar with forensic techniques, and the procedures of police."

"And arrogant," Matthew says. "Maybe deservedly so - but you did leave witnesses. And saliva. We're in the process of getting the necessary warrants, and when we match your DNA to what was left at the crime scenes, it'll all be over." He raises both eyebrows. "It's over already. This is the only chance you're going to get to tell your side of things - to tell me how you did it and why."

Applegate leaned forward, a smug smile back on his face, malice in his eyes. "I don't have to tell you anything, Mr. McCormick. If you want to put me on trial for murder, do so on what forensic evidence you think you have. I won't make your job easier for you."

"That's Agent McCormick," Matthew tells him flatly. If Applegate wants to be arrogant - well, two can play at that game, and Matthew's better at it. He's had a lot more practice, and has better reasons for arrogance. The look he gives Applegate is eight hundred years old, and has all the pride and self-confidence that comes with having the power of life and death over one of England's largest desmenes. "And I don't need you to make my job easier for me. In fifteen years, I've never arrested the wrong person. I can spot people like you a mile away." Get angry, he's thinking. Get angry, get sloppy, get over-confident.  The forensic evidence will probably be enough, but he wants Applegate to *fry*, and that's always easier with a confession.

"You're nothing more than an ill-bred hound barking joyously at your ability to blunder onto a trail." Applegate sneered at Matthew.

"And you're the fox, criss-crossing his trail and sending the dogs in circles?" Goren's voice was quiet, his head tilted to one side. "Preening at his cleverness, and forgetting the hunter the dogs belong to."

"You're nothing better than he is." Applegate had almost forgotten the other man was there, and he glared at Goren. "Just quieter."

"Maybe." Goren shrugs, leaning back against the door. "I know you're starting to worry, behind that mask of yours. That you never planned for getting caught, even though you were careful to leave no trace of yourself at the crime scenes beyond that one little trace. That thread that tied them all together. A trace you left behind on purpose, a way of bragging, if anyone managed to figure out the connection."

"And there was a trail to find," Matthew says, eyes hard. "You must have thought you were so clever. I can't believe you didn't think anyone would figure it out."

"I am clever. The hunt's worth nothing without a little challenge." Applegate slid a sideways look at Goren again, a calculating, measuring look. "If there's anyone who can figure it out, at least. You certainly didn't do that without someone pulling your strings, McCormick."

"And yet here you are, in handcuffs." Matthew smiles. "Clearly, you're not that clever." He's going to take a long shower and have several stiff drinks when this interview's over. Applegate makes him feel slightly nauseous.

"Oh, but I am." Applegate smirked. "You're not. Now where is the one holding your leashes? Tell him he can call off his hounds, and if he wants to talk, he can come do it himself."

"We can tell her, but she's not going to talk to you. What was it she said?" Goren looked over at Matthew, certain he'll catch onto where he's going without having to explain. "You remember, don't you? Something about not taking out the garbage for us, or something like that."

"Basically," Matthew agrees. "She was quite clear on the fact that she didn't want to sully her hands on this one." He gives Applegate a disgusted look. "I can't say as I blame her. She has much more important things to be doing."

"She?" Applegate raised an eyebrow, surprised. "You're letting yourselves be ordered about by a woman?"

"She caught you, didn't she?" Matthew says, letting his amusement show. He would quite like to introduce Applegate to Cierdwyn. The resultant bloodshed would be incredibly satisfying. "I'm not stupid enough to underrate someone because they happen to be female."

Not anymore, anyway. He'd never been as bad as Applegate, but Cierdwyn had had to trounce him very thoroughly before he'd agreed to listen to her.

"She's the best at her job. Never fails to get a conviction when she decides to take on a case. Even when the DA thinks there isn't enough evidence, or there's no confession." Goren shrugs. "It's an honor to work for her."

"And yet, it took her this long to catch up with me?"

"No. She didn't take on your case until two weeks ago. When you killed Ms Montgomery. That was a mistake, you know, killing in her favorite city."

"She caught you in two weeks." Matthew leans back in his chair and crosses his legs at the ankle, smiling slightly to drive the point home. "She's probably not even watching the interview."

"Doesn't need to ask you why you did it, because it's not important." Goren moves in, sitting on the edge of the table. "She doesn't need to know why, she doesn't care. All she cares is making sure you die for spilling blood in her city." He pauses, before adding in one more little dig. "That, and making sure everyone who worked on this case, even the officer who arrested you, has her personal thanks."

Applegate's expression went from one almost of respect to one of digust in seconds, and he stood rapidly, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. "Doesn't the stupid bitch know how to keep inferiors in their place? It's creatures like her that destroy society, that throw away everything they could have just to be like every other base thing around them. You can't fix them, you can only wash your hands in their blood."

"And that's what you've been doing?" Matthew asks. "Defending society?"

"Real society, where people know their place." He lifted his chin, a sneer of disgust on his face. "You don't treat some idiot who can't learn anything more than a rote position like they're fit for more than what they are. It demeans you, and makes you no better than they are."

"So why not punish them?" Matthew asks softly. "Why go after 'real society' instead of the ones who are being encouraged to get above themselves?"

"They're not real society if they can't be bothered to remember their own place. Deserve to learn just how far they've fallen. Cast out of paradise, and into the hell they'd prefer." Applegate's eyes glittered with fury and malice. "They deserved every minute of pain, to die on their knees."

"So you gave it to them." Matthew has to clench his teeth to keep the triumphant smile from breaking out. This is enough of a confession to put Applegate in the electric chair, and it'll only get better. Once they start talking, they almost never stop.

* * *

Goren finished typing up his report, sitting back in the chair at the borrowed desk. He'd stayed in the interrogation room until he and Matthew had gotten all the details out of Applegate - ten murders in the US, two in Britain, and one each in Paris and Berlin. West Berlin at the time, Applegate's first murder, while he was a student there. All of them with a level of brutality and callousness that would keep him up at night for a while.

"Thank God that's over," Matthew says, finishing up a report of his own. The proliferation of paperwork is one of his least favourite developments in his chosen profession. They're alone, so he adds, "I found myself wishing I could re-introduce the rack." If anyone deserved it, it was Applegate. "It's not an uncommon desire in this sort of case, but I felt it more strongly than usual this time."

"People like that..." Goren shakes his head. "They don't care about anyone around them, and once they're caught, they try to drag down everyone to their level, even if the attempt is unintentional." He grimaces, rubbing a hand over his face a moment. "Even once the trial's over, if he's given a death sentence, there'll be years of appeals before we get to see him dead. You won't even get a chance to be there."

He genuinely regrets that Matthew won't actually have the chance to be around to see the real end of this, when Applegate is dead. Though that's certainly better than someone finding out Matthew is Immortal who might do something about it beyond just ask questions.

"The world's smaller than it used to be," Matthew says. "I won't get to see him die, but I'll know when it happens. I've mostly outgrown the need to witness executions myself." Except when the killer's Immortal, and then it's mostly a matter of being sure than anything else. "I see enough death, at work and away from it. Though if I could, I'd make an exception in this case."

"Away from work?" Goren sits up a bit, watching Matthew curiously. "Just mortals growing old around you, or something else?"

"I don't usually stay in one place long enough to watch people get old," Matthew says, wincing at his inadvertent slip. He hadn't wanted to explain the Game, but in all fairness, he should. "Immortals...we kill each other. Permanently. It's called the Game, and it's deadly serious. I don't play, but I defend myself when I have to. It's why we take students; we teach them how to defend themselves as well as how to avoid mortal notice. I was practically born with a sword in my hand, but I didn't really learn how to use it until after my first death. Corwin was a peasant and a poacher; he knew about as much about swordsmanship as you do." He scowls. Corwin's carelessness when it comes to carrying a blade is one of the constant irritants in his life.

"Why kill each other?" Other than the fact that humans, even those not Immortal, killed each other for a handful of reasons. Greed, jealously, fear. "I mean, I understanding fighting to defend yourself, but why go looking to kill others?"

"It's the Game," Matthew sighs. "It's what we do. We're supposed to fight until there's only one of us left, and that one wins the Prize. Of course, no one knows what the Prize is, or if there even is one. Even the oldest of us doesn't know any more than that." Methos is an expert and inveterate liar, but Matthew doesn't think the man would lie about that. "When one of us dies, the force that keeps us young and whole is released, and is absorbed by the winner. It's -" pain, ecstasy, pleasure, agony - "It's quite a rush. And the older the Immortal, the more powerful the sensations. Some of us become obsessed." His lips tighten. "I take care of them, when I run across them."

"Greed, for power? Compounded with an addiction, for some?" Goren leans forward, his brow furrowed, trying to understand. He can see how the idea of something that will only be given to one person could drive individuals to kill, but he's sure there's more to it than that.

"And the fact that we're all told that it's our *purpose,*" Matthew says bitterly. "Becoming Immortal can be seriously traumatic. It means giving up everything you were, everything you thought you'd be. Immortals have no family; we're all foundlings, so it means acknowledging that your parents are not your parents, that if you have any children, your wife has betrayed you with another man. The Game can appear as a reason for living in a life that's just lost its purpose. And it seems more ridiculous to children of this century than it did to me when I was first told of it. And the Prize might well be real. Certainly one of the rules is very well enforced, though the others require self-policing."

"And these rules? What are they?" Goren takes the rest as it is, something to think about later, simply information that can give him a place to start if or when he wants to do more research. If he has to do more research.

"The first is that there can be only one. Fights have to be one on one, and it's cheating to simply shoot an opponent and then take his head." Matthew chuckles. "Corwin has a bad habit of shooting Challengers and throwing them into nearby bodies of water, but he never takes their heads when he does that. And the one that's enforced is that it's forbidden to fight on holy ground - of any religion. The story is that a couple of us were fighting in a temple in Herculaneum right before Mount Vesuvius erupted, and I've heard it said that Atlantis sank because of an Immortal duel in the wrong place. I know I certainly wouldn't risk it, and I've seen men who've hated one another since the Romans sacked Carthage walk away from one another because they were in a cemetary." Of course, they'd made arrangements to meet later - but Matthew understood that sort of hatred, and how difficult it must have been to wait.

"That's... rather an impressive way to enforce a rule." Goren was a bit impressed by it, though there's no way to know for certain that the stories were true, or just ways of ensuring that no Immortals fought on holy ground. "And the rest of them are more suceptiable to being broken?"

"There's no cataclysmic punishment for it," Matthew says dryly. "It doesn't happen very often, though, usually because anyone who's cheating like that leaves a pretty wide trail, and someone decides it's time for them to die. Corwin gets away with it because he doesn't make it permanent, and because he's never really made any serious Immortal enemies. There are variants, too. Older Immortals rarely have a problem with using a second, hidden blade; the younger ones tend to think it's cheating. Cierdwyn - my teacher - uses one."

"But there could still be those who cheat and get away with it." Goren tilts his head a moment. "What about you? Do you think a second blade is cheating, or would you use it? If you needed to."

"I carry one, and I've used it," Matthew admits. "It's the way I was trained, before death and after. And I made damn sure all my students could do the same. Then again, I carried a sword into battle. It's a different mindset when you've only ever used one for duelling." He smiles briefly. "I have it on good authority that using steel or iron against bronze used to be considered - not cheating, exactly, but decidedly unfair. Still, I prefer to win with one blade, if at all possible. It usually is."

"But with changing technology, and social standards... how do you manage to carry a sword all the time anymore? I mean, particularly with metal detectors, and the heightened security at airports, it's got to be a bit more difficult to travel these days. And if shooting another Immortal is considered cheating, what do you do if another Immortal uses airports, or other travel terminals as their hunting ground?"

"Travel can be an inconvenience," Matthew allows. "It's next to impossible to get a sword onto an airplane with you - but it's not hard at all to get the required papers to have it checked. And you'd have to be a damned fool to start a fight on an airplane, even if you did manage to keep your sword. It would fall right out of the bloody sky, and there'd be no guarantee that even Immortality would keep you alive. As for terminals - there aren't many of us left who are going to start fights in public. If it happened to me, I'd likely shoot them. It's one of the benefits to being in law enforcement."

"Why..." Goren pauses, frowning a moment before he smiles. "Whatever it is that keeps you young, that heals you, it would disrupt a plane's systems? Some sort of electronic interference, or discharge?" That there aren't many Immortals who'd start a fight in public makes sense - and makes for fewer chances for mortals to accidentally find out about Immortality. That part's easy to understand.

Matthew watches him for a long moment, then sighs. "Watch." He crosses to his coat and fishes one of his daggers out of it, then rolls up his sleeves and flicks a cut along the skin of his forearm. It bleeds for a few moments before stitching itself back together, Quickening-fire flickering along the edges of the wound. "When one of us loses our heads, the result is something like a localized electric storm. I usually have to replace any electronics I'm carrying, and if the deceased is old enough or strong enough, it can kill car batteries, blow transformers, knock out whole power grids, even. It's fairly spectacular-looking, and tends to attract a lot of attention if it's anywhere it can be witnessed."

Goren watches the wound heal, fascinated by the way it did so. There've been reports, he knows, about random incidents that might be explained by Immortals fighting in New York. Of lightning that comes out of nowhere, of power outages in warehouses and near the docks that no one can ever quite figure out how they happened.

"That would be really impressive to see." And not something he really wants to see, not when it means watching someone die.

"It's even more impressive to be in the middle of," Matthew says dryly. "Mortals have gotten killed before from standing too close. There tends to be a lot of shattering glass and flying debris. Back when cities used to be made of wood, it would sometimes start fires. Sometimes it still does, though that's much more rare than it used to be."

"I can imagine." Goren sits up again, shrugging. "What happens with the bodies afterward? I've never actually seen a report of a murder victim in the places where there've been unexplained electrical damage."

"Those of us with the manners not to be careless dispose of them ourselves. The rest of us leave them for the Watchers, or the police. And I'm willing to bet you've at least heard of the end result of an Immortal duel. It was all over the papers in New York City back in the mid-eighties - headless corpses, swords, the whole works. I was extrememly glad to be out of the country at the time."

"I wasn't in New York at the time." Goren shook his head. "I was part of Army CID then, stationed in Germany, or South Korea." He's not sure which, it depends on when exactly it was. Possibly elsewhere, but it would be easy enough, once he looked up the relevent news-stories.

"It was...memorable." Matthew leans back in his chair. "There aren't many of us who are crazy enough not to care about exposure, but the man ultimately responsible for that series of beheadings certainly was. He was originally from one of the many tribes that used to inhabit what is now Russia, and he never got past the barbarism he grew up with. It's always the ones who won't or can't adapt, but can survive, that cause the most trouble. You've probably heard of Evan Caspari." Matthew shakes his head. "He made Applegate look like a responsible citizen."

"Evan Caspari, the serial killer in Romania, the one who cannibalized his victims." Goren nodded. "There were reports he escaped the asylum where he was held, in 1996?"

"He didn't last long," Matthew assures him. He'd made sure of that personally. Methos had convinced him to have Caspari confined rather than killed, and he'd demanded an accounting from the older Immortal, one that he'd gotten - eventually. "He grew up in a cannibalistic culture, and nothing in his extremely long life ever persuaded him to do anything but refine his technique and his cruelties."

Not an Immortal Goren would want to meet. He's quiet a long moment before going back to another line of thought. "Is there anyway for you to know who will become Immortal? And how does it manifest, what triggers it? What sort of death?"

"Violent death, of some kind. If you're a latent Immortal and die of old age, or illness, it'll be permanent. As far as who becomes Immortal - we can sense each other, and a pre-Immortal feels like a lighter presence than does one of us who's come into his Immortality. Not all of us can tell them apart from mortals - or so I've been told, anyway."

"You can, though. Or you would know from experience that not every Immortal can tell mortals and those who just haven't had their Immortality triggered yet."

"True," Matthew admits. "I knew Corwin was pre-Immortal before I had him hanged." His mouth twitches in a smile. "I should have just let him go. I'd only been Immortal for thirty years or so when I took him on, and I really ought to have known better." Still, he's glad he did.

"Who knows who would have found him if you had let him go." Goren shifted in his seat. "What sort of person he might have become with the wrong teacher. I can certainly imagine that some Immortals end up with teachers that twist what might have been good people. Maybe Immortals like Caspari, if he took on any students. Or whoever taught him."

Matthew's wince is barely perceptible, but he knows it's there. He knows the Immortal who taught Caspari, and whatever Methos had been like then, that he's changed is undeniable.

"It happens," he admits. "Though I doubt Caspari would have been able to be a decent person no matter who taught him. The man was a serial killer, even before his first death."

"The Immortal who taught Caspari... do you know of him? Or her?" Goren had noticed the wince, but he's not quite sure if he's going in the right direction.

"Yes." Matthew hasn't lied to Goren yet, and he's not about to - though he knows better than to give the man any information that will let him actually find Methos. "He's a rarity among us, in that he managed to grow out of killing everyone in his path. Most of us don't adapt that well in either direction, but he grew into it and grew out of it. He's still every bit as dangerous as he used to be, though, so I hope you'll forgive me if I decline to give you any more information. I very much doubt that I could take him, if it came down to swords between us, and exposure to mortals is one of the only reasons I can imagine for him to come after me."

"He doesn't like to be found, does he?" Goren had no intention of looking for any Immortal, unless they ended up involved in one of his investigations. He wouldn't go out of his way to avoid them if an investigation pointed him at one, either. "And if a mortal finds him, so can other Immortals, and he wouldn't appreciate someone even accidentally pointing anyone in the right direction."

"Not even a little bit," Matthew says dryly. "He's not the only one who feels that way, but he'd certainly be the most emphatic about it. Eventually." Methos has lived long enough to wait a century or more before taking his revenge. "I'd rather infuriate Cierdwyn, and she's quite frightening enough."

"Eventually? He's patient, then." Goren isn't really trying to profile the man Matthew isn't naming, but it's almost automatic. "Patient, adaptable, doesn't like to be found. A survivor? An Immortal who wants to win this Game? Or just doesn't want to lose?"

"The latter," Matthew says shortly. "None of us want to lose, considering what that means." Considering that the winner of any Challenge gets their opponent's memories, and God only knows what happens to the loser's soul. Matthew's no longer as provincial as he was raised to be, but certain concepts still give him pause. "I don't particularly want to win - but I certainly don't want to lose."

"Because winning means that your Immortal friends, your teacher, your student, they're all dead. And you're alone, no one ever living as long as you will." Goren's voice is quiet, his expression a bit troubled. "It's not worth the price to win."

"No," Matthew agrees. "It's not." He looks down at his hands. "With any luck, it'll never happen." Or he won't live to see it. "There are some Immortals who feel the same way, so maybe we'll confound expectations after all." He smiles, deliberately pushing away his melancholy. "I'm sure the Watchers would be annoyed."

"Watchers?" Goren raised an eyebrow. "People who know about Immortals, and what? Just watch them? Or something more?"

"They watch us, and write down what we do. They clean up after Challenges, too, or we'd most likely have been caught by now. We've come close a couple of times, usually during periods of serious world disruption, when the Watchers can't do their jobs as well as they'd like."

"Like wars, or pandemics. Natural disasters, things like that." Goren would almost bet he could find reports of random bodies turning up decapitated during any period of disruption around the world. "They have records about mortals who find out about Immortals, too?"

"Not usually." Matthew shifts position. "They keep track of govermnents that find out about us, but individuals - well, if the Watchers find out, they usually end up joining the organization. The Watchers can be fairly persuasive, and challenges aren't always as isolated as they ought to be. Or we end up doing something that exposes us, and the Watchers see it. You should be safe, though."

Goren certainly hoped so, as he's been careful not to ask Matthew about this stuff when there's anyone around. "How close do they get, usually? Work in the same place, live nearby, or just watch from a distance?"

"It varies. Mine's usually a member of whatever department I'm with, though I don't think I've had an active one in a few years - my lifestyle's too solitary. As far as the others go - well, I'm not really sure of the details. We're not supposed to know that they exist, after all. I do know that Corwin tends to get his Watchers arrested."

Goren chuckled, smiling a moment. "I can imagine he does." And he'd almost bet Cory - Corwin, apparently - kept going through Watchers like he would cash at a charity. "If the Watchers figure out I know about Immortals, they'd try to recruit me, wouldn't they?"

"More than likely. And though some of them are decent enough, they're still not the sort to take no for an answer, so I wouldn't do anything too obvious if you decide to go digging."

"I'd rather ask questions from someone I can trust." Which made digging for anything in particular out of the question. Though taking the time to look at history when he had free time isn't something that would necessarily be out of character for him. Just another trip to the library.

"I'll make sure you can get in touch with me after Agent McCormick passes on," Matthew promises. "If nothing else, you can keep me up to date on Applegate's appeals." He frowns, hoping to God that that death won't compromise Applegate's case. "I hope it won't compromise anything if I disappear." Death usually doesn't, but this isn't one of those cases over which he wants to take a chance.

"I don't know what it might do to a case in Virginia, if your current alias died now, but there are ways to mimic aging, if that's needed. I'm sure you could pull that off." Although he'd probably do better if he were in a different office than his current one, at least for a while. "But once the trial's over, and he's actually convicted, you might not have to. There are others involved in the case who can provide the DA anything they need to keep up with Applegate's appeals."

Matthew grimaces. "I can, but it's...inelegant. And if someone discovers what I'm doing, it all becomes rather difficult to explain. Extremely difficult, actually. I'd rather not end up the subject of a federal investigation, even if I can escape by dying. Information lasts too long these days."

"Then just wait until the trial's over, and Applegate's in prison." Goren shrugs, leaning back in his seat. He doesn't get a chance to say anything else before the door opens, and someone else comes into the office they're borrowing. "We've got enough evidence to bury him." Switching conversations to something that others would expect to walk in on, at least to a certain extent. It's not Eames, at least, and she's the one who'd see through the ruse.

"I'm looking forward to it," Matthew says, and smiles.

* * *

The hotels in Richmond that Matthew could afford - at least towards the end of this particular lifetime, when his identity was likely to be at least moderately scrutinized - weren't the least bit appetizing. He's settled on the least offensive of them all, but it's still entirely unappealing. At least it's close enough to the courthouse to be not entirely inconvenient, and there aren't any cockroaches. Also, Goren and Eames are in the same hotel, which makes things fairly convenient. It's been a few months since he's seen either detective, and he's bored, so he's resorted to hanging about in the bar, waiting for one or the other of them to show up.

The day's testimony is over, and Eames is heading upstairs for a shower after having to deal with Applegate and his lawyer, while Goren heads for the hotel bar. It's not much, but it's at least clean, and Matthew's usually there. He's enjoyed talking to Matthew when he has the opportunity, and catching up with him while they're in Richmond for Applegate's trial. A trial which has, so far, been going well for them, and not so well for Applegate.

He takes the stool next to Matthew, ordering a beer. "Eames is going up to the room, says she needs to wash off the slime of dealing with the lawyer."

"Applegate's is a particularly foul version of the breed," Matthew agrees. He's been a lawywer himself, on more than one occasion, but he generally stuck to the prosecutorial side of the law. Even when he hadn't, he'd have refused a client like Applegate. "One gets the feeling that he would defend the Devil himself, were that gentleman to be charged with some crime over which mortal courts have jurisdiction."

"And if he were paid enough." Goren shakes his head. "He's not a fool, though, and he's doing a good job of trying to defend his client." Even if he isn't able to refute much of the evidence the prosecutor has been presenting, and the jury isn't buying the perseucted professor that Applegate is trying to portray himself as. "The media's done a good job of dividing public opinion on Applegate's innocence or guilt, and part of that's been driven by his lawyer."

"Public opinion doesn't matter. Not in a trial," Matthew reminds him. "The jury's been sequestered; the only thing that matters is the testimony allowed in that courtroom." He smiles briefly, looking away from Goren and down at his glass. "If he does get acquitted, I can guarantee he won't survive McCormick by a week." It's an oblique reference, but the bar is relatively deserted, so it's a safe enough thing to say. He means it, too - it won't be the first time he's stepped in when mortal courts have failed, and he doubts very much that it will be the last.

"I'm not worried about what it'll do with the jury. It's just interesting that his lawyer is trying to push public opinion, even if it doesn't do his client any good." Goren takes a drink of his beer. "Let's hope he doesn't have to follow McCormick to the grave. I'd rather he were taken care of by the criminal justice system."

As much because he didn't want McCormick to have to kill Applegate as anything else.

"So would I," Matthew admits. "It doesn't mean I'll let him go free to -" He stops abruptly, the tingle of Immortal presence washing uncomfortably over his nerves. "Give me a moment." 

The man at the door to the hotel is all-too-familiar, and his eyes light immediately on Matthew. Matthew mutters a curse in Latin, but stays right where he is, even as the other Immortal approaches.

"Salisbury," the man says, having made his way across the floor. Matthew's warning glare has no effect.

"Rivera." It's more threat than greeting, but the other man doesn't back off.

"It's been...too long."

"Not long enough. I'm busy."

"I *saw*." Which means that this is no accidental encounter. Matthew is grateful for Eames' shower, and that Goren can probably figure out what's going on. "Thirtieth and Cary," Rivera continues. "Midnight. Or I'll go looking for Raines."

"I'll be there," Matthew promises. "If only to teach you the meaning of discretion."

Rivera, fortunately, doesn't waste time in further discussion, and leaves in a swirl of long coat and bad temper. Matthew lets out a long breath, and relaxes back onto his bar stool.

Goren watches, mentally noting the way Matthew stopped speaking, the tension that ran through him even before he spotted the other Immortal, this Rivera. "Should I keep that in mind, and pick you up after?"

Help Matthew dispose of the body, if he would like the assistance. That, and there's a risk if Rivera wins this challenge, however slim Goren hopes the chances of that are, that Matthew's death will derail Applegate's trial. It's really not the best time for someone like this to show up.

"If there is an after," Matthew mutters, then shakes his head. "No - I'll be fine, and if Rivera has a Watcher, you don't want to get on their radar." He has little hope that Goren will listen, but he owes the man enough to make the attempt. "He's been unhappy with me for a very long time now, and there's no putting him off."

"What did you do to piss him off?" Goren's keeping his voice low, even though there's few people in the bar. "If you're willing to talk about that here. I can ask later, if that's better." He's not planning on staying at the hotel, even if he has to tell Eames what he's up to. Though he hopes he won't have to do so.

"He was one of Phillip's retainers. After Bloody Mary's death, I declared for Elizabeth, and had him taken prisoner." It hadn't been dishonorable - but it had been ruthless. "He met his first death at the hands of the lord who was supposed to ransom him, and he's blamed me ever since. He will go after Corwin if I don't meet him, and Corwin's usual tricks won't work." And Matthew's had other students since Cory. Carl's good, but not good enough to face someone of Rivera's experience.

Goren grimaces, nodding. That's certainly something that he supposes would piss a person off. "It gives a whole new meaning to revenge being a dish best served cold." He pauses, frowning. "You don't think he'll still go after Cory if he wins this challenge, do you?" It would give him a reason to be in the area, and watch out to see who wins.

"It's possible. Unlikely, but possible. Corwin's not in the same social class - at least, Rivera wouldn't see it that way." All he can do is hope that he's right. "If I lose - well. If I lose, Corwin will simply have to take his chances. That's the Game."

A game which Goren doesn't really understand, can't entirely wrap his head around, even though he knows enough from what Matthew has told him that he should stay as far away from it as possible. That knowledge isn't enough to keep him here tonight, but it's still there. "And because Rivera doesn't see Cory as being in the same social class, he won't see him as someone worth going after if you're dead. Except in the context of the Game."

"As long as I'm dead, he's got no reason to go after Corwin," Matthew agrees. "He'll challenge him as a matter of course if they run into one another, but other than that, no, I don't see him making the effort." It's a comfort, but not much of one. Matthew's got no illusions as to his own skill - he knows he's damned good - but Rivera's no slouch with a blade, and there are always a thousand things that could go wrong in a Challenge.

"That's good." Goren nods, reaching for his beer again, though he doesn't drink any. "Of course, if he loses, that's all moot."

"That would certainly be the ideal outcome," Matthew acknowledges, pushing aside his own glass. It will metabolize before midnight, of course - would if he were mortal, at this point - but it's sloppy, though he's fought drunk in the past. It's been nearly three years since he last took a Challenge, and that's long enough to make him - not nervous, exactly, but certainly focused. "I should probably get a bit of practice in," he admits. He practices every day, of course, but it won't hurt to get in a bit more. It's almost enough to make him wish Corwin were here. Almost, because Corwin would likely come up with some sort of ridiculous plan that involved explosives, and get them all in more trouble than before.

"A hotel room isn't enough room to really practice, is it? You have someplace else in mind." Which might work in Goren's favor, if he's going to be nearby when Matthew fights Rivera, give him time to make his plans, maybe time enough to explain to Eames something of what's going on, and convince her not to tell anyone. If he tells her, which he's reluctant to do.

"There are enough abandoned warehouses in the area," Matthew says. "I shouldn't have a problem finding one. The address Rivera's given is probably the only place I need to look." It will also allow him the opportunity to ensure that the man hasn't set up any traps. Rivera's not the sort, but then, one never really knows.

Goren nods, already starting to plan ahead for the evening. "Because he'll have chosen some place which has the privacy to keep others from noticing the challenge taking place. Maybe some place that's easy to just leave a body behind, if he needs to." Or if Matthew needs to, but Goren's wagering that Rivera's coming at it with the assumption he'll win.

"He also knows I have students. And friends," Matthew says, more to himself than to Goren. "We're completely defenseless for a few minutes after a Quickening; he won't want to take the chance that someone else will be waiting just out of range to take their revenge. It's not quite cheating, and it's happened before."

"Particularly with those who have close friends or students?" Goren tilts his head to one side, curious. "Those who might want to get revenge for the death of a loved one."

"Precisely," Matthew acknowledges. He likes to think that it's not an option he would take, but if he were to see Corwin or Cierdwyn killed in front of him - who knows? "Some of us - despite our inclinations - stay together for a very long time indeed." As always since Caspari's death, it makes him think of Methos and Kronos - Koren, when Matthew had encountered him. He'd like to say that he can't see the partnership, but it would be a lie.

"So there's always that risk, if you know the person you're challenging has close ties to others." Goren sits straight again, looking thoughtful a moment. "Which adds another layer to wanting to find a secluded place to conduct a challenge, more than just no witnesses or someone accidentally stumbling onto it."

"It's a complicated existence," Matthew laughs, and stands up. "I think I'm off to investigate that address." He casts a sidelong glance at Goren. "I'd tell you to stay here, but it wouldn't do me much good, would it?"

Goren shrugs, giving Matthew a lopsided grin for a brief moment. "No, not really." He does intend to be careful, but he's not going to stay at the hotel, worrying about when - or if - Matthew's going to make it back. He's come to respect the Immortal a bit too much to sit still and wait.

* * *

Goren looks around the inside of the warehouse, a broad, empty expanse that looks almost ideal for sword-combat, at least to his untrained eyes. He hasn't told Eames where he's off to, or why, just that he's headed out with Matthew, to give him some back-up if he needs it. Though he's not planning to actually be in the warehouse itself - he'd prefer to have enough distance to be sure he won't accidentally get fried, no matter which Immortal wins this fight.

"It looks like he picked a good place for it. Enough room to fight, windows mostly boarded up for privacy. No doors that open directly onto the open space."

"If you want to watch, that doorway should give you enough space," Matthew says. "Rivera's not even as old as I am, and there won't be much in the way of flying glass, not in this space." His sword is a comfortable weight inside his coat, and he pulls it out easily enough, starting with a few easy swings as he accustoms his muscles to the weight and heft of the blade. He's never studied the Eastern techniques that are so popular with both of the MacLeods, but Cierdwyn knew a few breathing techniques that served to center him almost as well. He didn't want to do anything extensive; certainly he didn't want to tire himself, but he hadn't practiced in a few days, and he needed to reaccustom himself to the way the sword felt in his hand and along his arms and back and legs. It shouldn't take long.

"And the electrical discharge, that causes all the interesting issues, it shouldn't get this far, either, unless you're nearby when you cut off his head, right?" Goren still finds the idea of it troubling, even though he knows there's nothing he can do to change it. "You don't think Rivera's Watcher's going to think of this place as a good place to watch from? Or is he more likely to wait outside to see who comes out?"

"I don't know," Matthew admits. "Unlike some of us, I've never bothered to infiltrate the Watchers. The few I've had who've ended up partners provided me with most of the information I have on them. But you'll be safe there - the Quickening grounds itself on the winner. Most mortal fatalities have to do with flying debris, and Rivera's not even six hundred yet. If I were fighting Methos, it would be a different story." He manages to keep himself from flinching, or even pausing the swing of the sword in his hand, mercifully, and continues as if the words mean next to nothing. "If that were the case, I'd not let you closer than ten blocks." Kronos and Silas together had wiped out the power to half of France; God alone knew what Methos' death would do, if that wily old bastard were ever to lose his head.

"An old Immortal?" Goren watches Matthew practice, fascinated by the ease he wielded the sword with. "This Methos. Someone old enough to cause a discharge that massive?" He's not sure he can imagine it, without knowing what this discharge, this transfer from one Immortal to another, looks like in the first place.

"He's a myth," Matthew explains. "Even to Immortals as old as my teacher, and she's seen two millenia go by." It's not quite a lie. Cierdwyn hadn't believed that Methos still lived until she'd learned otherwise from Rebecca. "Supposedly, he's the oldest of us - five thousand years and counting, if he's not older." Matthew strongly suspects that he is. He'd heard of Methos the five-thousand year old myth nearly a thousand years ago, and myths, after all, don't age. "I wouldn't want to be on the same side of the planet if he were real and were to lose his head." He's never had the illusions about Methos that the younger Immortals cherish. No one lasts five thousand years in the Game without the streak of ruthlessness that he's recently discovered Methos to possess. Even the world of his mortality was more civilized by far than the one in which the old man had grown up.

"Just a myth?" Goren looks skeptical, something about that a bit off to him. He's not sure where, or what's off, but something. Matthew's good at keeping him from spotting an outright lie, simply by not telling him any, but he's sure there have been times when information is left out. "Or is there actually proof to make you think he's real?"

"Old stories. Myths and legends; someone's teacher claims their teacher trained under him, or someone's teacher's teacher was killed by him. There's nothing concrete left." Nothing save Methos himself, sarcastic and ruthless and looking all too young for comfort. "Nothing that proves it one way or the other. If he were real, and known, he'd be the target for every hunter among us. The older the Immortal, the more powerful the Quickening. But there's no proof left that he's any more real than Adam and Eve."

"Real, and known." Goren latches onto that, tilting his head sideways. "He'd be like the Immortal who taught Caspari, that you mentioned wouldn't appreciate someone finding him. A survivor, someone who doesn't want, or like, to be found."

"Probably," Matthew says, letting the focus he has to maintain to keep his sword moving properly keep him from reacting. Goren is too good at making these sorts of connections, and for his own safety and Matthew's, he cannot be allowed to go any further.

The Horsemen will serve as a distraction, and if Goren can tie those Four back to Methos as his current, bookish self, Matthew will suffer the consequences. "Of course, Cierdwyn had a friend who swore up and down that Methos was the leader of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so you can take it as read that some of it really is just legend." His tone invites Goren to join him in ridiculing the idea - but not too much. Overkill would only serve to make the man suspicious.

Goren goes still for a moment, pieces almost visibly clicking into place. "Caspari would have been Famine, wouldn't he? If the Horsemen were real. Death by the bringer of famine, hunger that goes so deep that even the corpses of those who have starved become a source of food. And his teacher, Methos, if he were the leader... the other three would be War - Death by the bearer of the great weapon; Plague - Death by the bringer of plague; and the one everyone else calls Death. Death by the intellectual evil."

He starts to pace, the puzzle coming together in his head. "And the first two of those, they wouldn't be the sort to be real leaders. Good at causing trouble and chaos, maybe, but not really leading. Death by the intellectual evil, the one who thinks, who plans, that's the leader there. If they're all real - and let's stipulate that they are - then Methos would be Death. The intellectual, the planner. A survivor. Like the one you said taught Caspari." Goren looks over at Matthew, raising an eyebrow.

"They don't even have to be the biblical figures of the Apocalypse, just raiders that couldn't be killed. It would fire the imagination, and terrify those that could die, could be killed. An inspiration for John of Patmos, for other writers."

"Stop," Matthew says hoarsely. "Now. Before you go too far and get both of us killed." He's outsmarted himself, and that doesn't happen often. He deserves it, though, for underestimating Goren. "He may be reformed, but he's still Death of the Horsemen when it counts, and if anyone were to find out that you knew that I knew where to find him, I wouldn't wager on your life lasting more than a week. Methos is the second Prize; he's the Holy Grail, in Christian terminology, and anyone who knows where to find him, even indirectly, is in more danger than you can possibly comprehend, from men and women with thousands of years behind them who want thousands more. There's real power in a Quickening, and whoever takes Methos' might well garner enough to win the Prize. The other three Horsemen are dead - he saw to that himself - and even I don't want to know any more."

Goren nods silently, though his mind is still racing. He knows how to keep his mouth shut when he needs to, even if he is curious. It's enough to know he's right, and Matthew's reaction tells him that. "A Quickening - you said it's all the power, what keeps you young and heals you? Is that really just all it is?"

It sounds like an entirely unrelated line of questions, but he knows where he's making the connection to the last bit, knows what he's trying to figure out now.

"No." This isn't anything that should be shared with a mortal, but Matthew trusts Goren not to push too far with it - and it's nothing the Watchers haven't started to figure out. "It's memories, knowledge, strength and speed. It's the closest thing we have to a soul, and it's completely absorbed by the victor - vampirism on a far more monstrous level." He shakes his head. "There's a reason I'll keep Methos' secret to my grave, and it's not because I fear his retribution - it's because I don't want the Prize won, and with his power, it could be. Provided pre-Immortals stop popping out of the woodwork, of course."

"Memories, knowledge." Goren frowns, a troubled expression on his face. "If the Quickening is completely absorbed by the victor, and they're getting all the memories and knowledge... how is any Immortal going to keep from being overwhelmed and subsumed by Methos, even if they manage to take his head? If he's thousands of years older than anyone else, how will they manage to maintain their own identity under the weight of all of what Methos is?"

"Why do you think none of us have ever gone after him?" Matthew demands. "The man who killed Caspari and one of the other Horsemen is only half my age - but I still wouldn't give odds on his defeating Methos, even if he were to win the Challenge. I've told you - I don't want to win any more than I want to lose. Maybe Methos' very survival keeps the Game balanced. All I know for sure is that I've heard of Quickenings that take over the winner, and that no one I know is willing to take that chance. The old ones don't hunt him - they know better. The ones who do are just old enough to know he's alive, and too young to know the dangers of beating him. There's one of us - three thousand years old - who owes him death more than any of the rest of us - and she let him live, when she had him defenseless after a Quickening." He'd wondered at the time why Methos had shared that bit of information. He doesn't any longer. "She let him live - and I'm fairly sure that the only reason why is that she *knew better*, for one reason or another. This is not a safe topic for discussion, Goren." It reminds Matthew of discussions that the Church would have called blasphemy in his mortal life, with the added threat of physical danger.

Goren isn't usually deterred by a topic being unsafe - but for now, he tries to reign in his enthusiasm and curiosity. At least for now, even though he wants to know more. Forcing himself to focus on just watching Matthew practice, and making sure that his vantage point for watching the fight later is hidden enough not to risk being seen by Rivera or Rivera's Watcher.

Matthew finally decides that he's as practiced as he needs to be, and puts his sword away, grateful that Goren's dropped the subject. 

"If I lose, will you get word to Corwin?" he asks. It's the sort of thing one would ordinarily ask of a second, and while Goren isn't that, exactly, there won't be anyone else around to do it. "He'll tell Cierdwyn." And Cierdwyn would tell the others who needed to know.

"I will." Goren nods, though he hopes he won't actually have to do that. He'll also have to figure out how to explain Matthew's death - he's not about to let it become a case of someone gone missing - and how he didn't have a chance to prevent it. Another thing he doesn't want to have to do.

"I appreciate it." Matthew means it. "Come on. Let's go get something to eat. I don't want to go into this on an empty stomach."

That much Goren can agree on, although he is certain they have two different reasons for wanting food in their stomachs. There's a cafe a few blocks from the warehouse that Rivera had designated as the meeting place, and on the way back to the hotel. A decent selection of food, and a quiet atmosphere.

"I should call Eames, tell her something." Goren isn't adverse to letting Eames think he's out with Matthew for something resembling a date, if it keeps her from trying to call or find him before they get back to the hotel. Or have to call her to let her know Matthew's dead, and then explain to her what really happened. He won't outright lie to her, however. "I'll be just a moment."

"Go ahead," Matthew tells him. "I'll be in the car." He doesn't really want to eat, but he'll feel better if he does. After eight centuries, he's used to Challenges and battles of all kinds, but he's never enjoyed them, and he won't enjoy this one. He has nothing against Rivera, save the man's threat against Corwin, but he has no choice, either. Climbing into the passenger's seat, he tips his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes.

The call to Eames doesn't last long, just enough for Goren to tell her he's out with Matthew, and they're not likely to be back before midnight. He can hear the curiosity in her voice, and knows she'll want to hear about what they've been out doing when they have a chance to talk about it. He closes his phone before he gets into the car, driving to the cafe. It takes a bit to find parking, the usual difficulty of parking in a city rather than a crowd at the cafe.

"This'll do nicely," Matthew murmurs, climbing out of the car and looking around. He glances back over at Goren. "Good choice."

"Thanks." Goren locks the car before heading across the street to the cafe. There's a bit of a wait to be seated, but the table is quiet, with enough distance from others to keep conversation to remain private, which is the biggest reason to choose this place over the various other restaurants in the area.

Goren stays with water with his dinner, though he knows wine would better complement whatever he orders; he'd rather not be concerned about any lingering effects of alcohol tonight.

Matthew sticks with simple food - chicken, potatoes, beans - and he, too, abstains from drinking. It's a bad habit, drinking before a fight, and not one he wants to get into. He knows he should be trying to get Goren to go back to the hotel and wait, but at the same time, he's grateful for the other man's presence. 

"It's not safe," he tries, one last time, "for you to be there. If I lose, and Rivera sees you, he probably won't react well."

Goren doesn't mention that's why he's carrying his gun, and intends to call for assistance if Matthew does lose. There'll be questions asked about why they were where they were, and what happened, but he's confident of his ability to give a reasonable enough account of their actions to keep the police from finding out about Immortality.

"I know." He shrugs. "I'm not necessarily going to be safer back at the hotel. Even if Rivera wouldn't come after me simply because I know about Immortals, someone would ask questions about why you vanished, where you went tonight."

"And if I do lose, and the questions start, you'll tell them that you dropped me off downtown after dinner, and you have no idea what happened afterwards. You don't want to get involved in the investigation that will result, especially if they find a body."

"If they ask Eames when I got back, it won't take a genius to figure out I wasn't back until after you were killed. Lying won't help keep me out of the investigation - just draw more scrutiny to me." Not that he'd go out of his way to tell them the entire truth, but he won't lie outright, either.

"So tell them you were somewhere else," Matthew suggests. "This isn't a case that should be solved. We could end up exposed. The sort of media frenzy that would come with the discovery of a headless FBI agent will be dangerous enough as it is." He breaks off as the waiter comes by to refill their waters.

Goren waits until the waiter is gone again before he replies. "They're not going to find a headless FBI agent." That's mostly confidence in Matthew, and while he has plans for what to do if Matthew doesn't, discussing that possibility isn't something that makes for good dinner conversation.

"One can only hope. Cierdwyn would be seriously annoyed with me if I lost to an idiot half my age without enough sense to realize that he's better off for having come into his Immortality."

Goren nods, turning his attention to his food, mulling over the possible outcomes of the evening. Toying with his food more than eating it, and keeping a wary eye on the time. Wanting to get back to the warehouse early enough that they could expect Rivera - or Rivera's Watcher - not to be there yet.

Matthew finishes off his his chicken and glances over at Goren. "Ready?" he asks. "I want to be there before Rivera. I don't know him well enough to be sure that he won't try to cheat." Pulling out his wallet, he drops a couple of bills on the table; enough to cover both of their meals and a decent tip.

Setting his fork back on the plate, Goren nods and pushes back from the table. The trip back takes even less time than getting to the cafe, though that's as much because Goren's pushing the car faster as there being less traffic. The warehouse looks as deserted now as it had earlier, and he glances over at Matthew in silent question if he senses Rivera already here.

Matthew shakes his head. The building looks deserted, but he's not certain of it. Rivera wouldn't be the first Immortal to use mortals to win a challenge.

"I'm going to go make sure that he hasn't put shooters in place," Matthew says. "I don't expect it, but it's happened before."

"Would you like back-up?" Or would Matthew prefer Goren goes inside and settles into the vantage point he'd picked out earlier. Which would also be a good place for a shooter if Rivera has decided to use mortals to make sure he won, and Goren intends to be careful going in, to make sure that he doesn't get himself shot.

Matthew wavers for a moment, unsure, then shakes his head. "Wait here. I won't be long." It wouldn't technically be cheating, but it's coming close to a line that shouldn't be crossed.

Checking the building out doesn't take long; it's empty, as expected, and Matthew goes to the doorway and beckons Goren in.

"Here," he says, pulling out his cell phone and taking off his watch. "If you don't mind holding these, I'll take advantage of the chance not to lose my electronics." He lifts an eyebrow. "It might not work, and I ought to warn you that you might lose your cell phone as well."

"I'll have a better chance of not losing it if it's off, though." Goren's already doing so, and does the same for Matthew's cell before tucking it in a pocket on the other side from his. "And if they do fry, they can be replaced later."

"I've got a reputation at work for being hard on cell-phones." Matthew pauses, tilting his head as Immortal presence washes over him. "He's here. Someone's here, anyway." He moves away from Goren, out into the center of the floor, and waits.

Goren settles himself into his vantage point, making sure he's not likely to be spotted as he watches the main floor. He almost would have liked enough time to find a spot above them, where he could reasonably expect to look down with a better view, and less chance of being seen - simply by virtue of the fact that few people look up for observers.

The presence is Rivera's, as expected. Matthew makes one last attempt to talk him out of the challenge.

"We don't have to do this," he says. "I didn't do anything to you that wasn't done to every other Spaniard in your situation."

"You cost me my title, my lands, my fortune -"

"Fine," Matthew interrupts. "Let's get on with it, then." He draws his sword, and Rivera does the same.

Rivera's good, albeit not as good as Matthew was expecting, and Matthew gets first blood, slicing open a gash on the other man's shoulder that makes him switch his sword to his other hand for a few passes. Matthew takes the next wound, but it's nothing more than a minor cut across his forearm. 

It ends up being a rather bloody fight. Rivera's not good enough to get deep behind Matthew's guard, but he is good enough to score several shallow slices across Matthew's torso. Getting back into the hotel tonight is going to be interesting, to say the least.

Finally, Rivera overextends. Matthew's blade comes up automatically, sweeping through the hole in his defense, and takes Rivera's arm at the elbow. The follow-up stroke is fast enough that Rivera barely has time to notice the injury before his head goes flying.

The speed and skill in the back-and-forth of the fight underscores the level of ability both of the combatants have, and Goren watches with more than a little fascination. He'll have to help Matthew get back into the hotel without someone asking about the bloody slices in his clothing, but that's the least of his concerns as he watches Matthew take off first Rivera's arm, then his head. It's how to get rid of the body, if Matthew doesn't opt to just leave it for the Watchers to dispose of.

The Quickening is brutal, as always, though not as large as it could have been, given Rivera's age. After it's over, Matthew staggers to the nearest wall and leans heavily against it, letting the whirl of energy and memories settle into something resembling order.

"Shit," he breathes, and runs a hand over his face. He's going to have to move eventually, but he doesn't want to do that just yet.

Goren waits a moment longer to come out of his hiding spot, moving slowly and keeping in Matthew's line of sight. He fishes in his pockets for the cell phones, making sure they both still work - and is glad when they both at least turn on. They're returned to his pockets as he waits for Matthew to pull himself together. The display as been as spectacular as he imagined it would be, from reports he's researched on unexplained destruction that looks electrical in nature.

After a few minutes, the worst of the fatigue passes. Matthew straightens, and wipes his sword clean on Rivera's coat before putting it away. He looks down at the body. The James River isn't far away, and if it's wrapped and weighted, it shouldn't surface until it's far enough downstream to no longer be a concern.

"Bloody hell," he sighs. "Sorry about the mess."

"I've seen worse crime scenes." Goren shrugs, careful to step around the blood on the floor. "Cell phones are still working. You want me to get tarp off one of these pallets to wrap the body?"

He's not quite sure how he feels about helping to dispose of a body, but it's better than having someone find it, and have trouble come up while they're in the midst of Applegate's trial.

Matthew looks up, genuinely startled. "You don't have to help with this." Still, he goes over to the tarp Goren had indicated and starts pulling at it. "We'll need some kind of weight to keep it from surfacing, but nothing too heavy. I want it to go downstream before it surfaces."

"I'd rather help than worry about someone showing up while you're still getting rid of the body." Goren starts searching the warehouse for something that will serve as a suitable weight. Most of the pallets contain stuff that's too light, or would float, but he does eventually find an old tool box in a corner, with quite a number of tools still in it. He hauls it back over to Rivera's body, setting it down on a clear patch away from the blood. "If we flood this, it should be enough to keep him down long enough to wash downstream before bloating brings him back up."

Matthew nods, and wraps both corpse and extra sword in the tarp, then pulls a second one free. "I'm afraid we'll have to risk putting him in your trunk, but if we put this tarp down first, we should avoid most of the fiber transfer and the water should take care of the rest."

Goren nods, and takes the tarp and tool box out to make sure the trunk is well lined, the tool box set on top of the tarp toward the back. He returns to help Matthew take Rivera's body out to the trunk, glad for the late hour, and the lack of traffic around the warehouse. "How far do you want to drive before we put the body in the river?" The balance of risk of blood in the trunk versus being too close to the warehouse when they put the body into the river.

"A few miles should do it," Matthew says, bending down to lift Rivera onto his shoulder. The dead weight is heavy, but nothing he can't handle, and he waves Goren away. "I've got it - you shouldn't take a chance of getting blood on yourself, and my clothing is already beyond repair." He glances outside before crossing the short distance to the trunk and dumping Rivera into it. Fortunately, the major wounds were effectively cauterized by the Quickening, and Matthew's clothing is in no worse shape than it was before. "Now we just have to hope we don't get pulled over," he mutters, looking down at the ruin of his shirt before closing the trunk.

So long as he keeps to near the speed limit, and doesn't run red lights, and no one runs into them, Goren doesn't think they'll be pulled over, and he's careful with his driving as he heads east along the river, finding a relatively secluded area of riverbank - and one that doesn't have too much sand along it to preserve foot prints - to pull over a mile or so outside the city. It's perhaps a bit further down the river than they'd originally intended, but at least there's less chance of leaving evidence of themselves behind.

It doesn't take long to fill the toolbox and re-wrap the tarp with it on the inside. Getting Rivera's body far enough into the current is a little trickier, but they manage, and Matthew's fairly confident that they're unobserved - which would argue that Rivera had no Watcher, though that was by no means certain.

"Thank you," Matthew says, nodding at Goren. "I appreciate it."

"You're welcome." Goren picks up his shoes from where he left them while they put the body into the river, heading back for the car. Now the only potential obstacle is getting Matthew back into the hotel and up to the room without being observed by hotel staff or the security cameras while he's bloodied, and in ripped clothing. That the car is a rental is another good thing, even with the lack of blood or fibers from Rivera - once it's cleaned by the rental company, there shouldn't be enough traces to connect Rivera to the car, and the car to them.

"Now for the tricky part," Matthew says, examining a rip his coat ruefully. "Damn. I really should have taken this off first." He gets back in the car, closing his eyes wearily. He's physically exausted, but the energy from the Quickening is still humming beneath his skin. Sleep will be next to impossible tonight - and his testimony is scheduled for tomorrow.

* * *

Goren's waiting at the bar this time, sitting where he has a good view of the lobby and the main doors so he can catch Matthew on his way in. Eames had asked for an explanation of where they were last night, and why Matthew had come back with his shirt covered in blood. An explanation he wasn't about to give alone, though he'd promised to tell her once Matthew was done with his testimony for the day.

Though he could have waited upstairs, and watched the door across the hall for Matthew to get back, he'd rather be down here, and catch him on the way upstairs.

Matthew's humming contentedly to himself as he walks through the hotel doors. He has a lot of experience on witness stands, and he'd acquitted himself well on this one. He'd particularly enjoyed Applegate's hate-filled glare; he considers that sort of thing one of the many satisfactions attached to his job. Seeing Goren at the bar he smiles and heads over, ordering a beer before dropping onto the barstool next to the other man.

"How was your day?" he asks, still smiling faintly in satisfaction.

"Relatively quiet." Goren hasn't left the hotel today, unwilling to risk running into the media, and mulling over the night before. "Eames was asking what happened last night; she saw us come in. I haven't told her yet."

Matthew winces, good mood vanishing like a pricked bubble. 

"How much did she notice?" he asks. It's too much to hope that she didn't see the blood on his shirt. "Could I get away with telling her I was in a bar fight somewhere?"

"You could try, but I don't know if she'll buy it." Goren shrugs, giving Matthew a brief, apologetic smile for ruining his good mood. "She wants to know if there's anything to worry about, with that much blood on your shirt."

"Too much for a nosebleed," Matthew agrees. "Damn. And my lack of anything remotely resembling a bruise probably won't help." He drains his glass, and this time he orders a whiskey. "Can I trust her with..." He makes a vague hand gesture that's meant to mean 'everything'. "She's your partner - you know her a lot better than I do."

Goren's quiet a moment before he nods. "She won't tell anyone, not once she knows why it's a bad idea." And because it wasn't exactly illegal, not when Matthew's only other options were to die, or let Rivera go after Cory. Defending himself, and others, which is what law enforcement is supposed to be about.

Matthew nods, still reluctant to do what he knows needs to be done.

"I'm getting careless," he mutters. "I hadn't been caught in forty years until this case." It's a sign that he needs to switch identities, go and be someone he's less comfortable with for a while - maybe get out of law enforcement altogether for a time. "I wonder if Corwin wants a partner." The absurdity of the idea is enough to make him smile, and restore a little bit of his good mood.

"You might not have been caught out if Ms Montgomery hadn't been murdered, and brought the case to New York." Goren shrugs, finishing the glass of lager he'd been drinking. "I certainly wouldn't have found out."

"I shouldn't have been caught at all," Matthew points out. "I'm lucky that you reacted as well as you did. And if Eames reacts as well as you think she will, I'm doubly lucky." In earlier centuries, discovery had sometimes meant being burnt at the stake - and there were potentially worse consequences in this one. Burning at the stake at least had an end to it. He shakes his head and tosses back the rest of his whiskey. "We might as well get it over with."

Goren nods, leaving a tip at the bar before heading for the elevators, the ride up brief - far briefer than yesterday's trip up the stairs to avoid cameras. He opened the door, giving Eames a brief smile as he held the door for Matthew to follow him in.

McCormick looks uncomfortable and slightly sheepish, and Goren looks particularly inscrutable. The former doesn't appear injured, though, which is something of a relief. There had been a lot of blood on his shirt last night, and his clothes had looked as if he'd gone ten rounds with a lawnmower.

"What happened last night?" she asks. "Goren wouldn't tell me." The glance she flicks at her partner isn't exactly pleased.

Matthew hates this part. It's hard enough explaining Immortality while sounding credible; if he says "I was in a duel to the death," it's going to cause serious problems.

"It's...extremely complicated," he starts, and looks helplessly at Goren, who will presumably know better than Matthew how to explain to his partner something as inherently ridiculous as Immortality and all that it entails.

"Remember how Detective Williams thought he recognized Matthew when we went down to Greensboro? And how easy it was for him to get help from a DGSE agent?" Goren paced toward the window before turning around. "Little details that didn't quite mesh with who his background says he should be, like the slightly too expensive suits, or the subtle arrogance of someone born to both power and responsibility."

"Yes," Eames says, and now she just looks suspicious. Matthew is tempted to just shoot himself and explain afterwards, but it would make a mess of the hotel room. Of course, the points Goren is making are very good, and will hopefully keep him from getting caught the next time around. "I assumed he'd inherited money, and maybe done some intelligence work."

"Both of those, ironically, are entirely true," McCormick murmurs. "What's hard to explain is the amount of time it's been since either of those things happened." He runs a hand over his face, looking extremelly uncomfortable. "I was in counterintelligence about twenty years ago; it's been about seventy since I did any actual infiltration work."

The first statement is difficult enough to accept - McCormick looks all of thirty, though his file swears he's older. The last is impossible. 

"Is this some kind of joke?" she demands, looking at Goren. "And what the hell does it have to do with him coming back to the hotel last night covered in blood?"

"It's not a joke, Eames." Goren sat on the end of one of the beds, looking up at Eames. "I found a picture for Matt Barnes, Detective Williams' partner who was shot in the line of duty over twenty years ago. He hasn't aged at all, looks exactly like Matthew does now. The same person, not a relative.

"Last night, he ran into another person like him, a man named Rivera. Rivera had a grudge, he tried to kill Matthew, and Rivera lost." And was now somewhere in the James River, headed for the Atlantic, head severed from the rest of him.

"So that was someone else's blood on you last night?" Eames demands. Matthew shakes his head, wincing. 

"Actually, it was mine. I heal extremely fast."

"How fast?" 

"Almost instantly," Matthew admits. "When I took those two bullets for Justin, I came back to life inside of an hour." The disbelief in her eyes doesn't change, and Matthew sighs. He's beginning to understand why Methos tends to begin these conversations by slicing himself open.

"Just watch," he sighs. It takes only a few moments for him to repeat the demonstration he'd given Goren all those months ago. When he finishes healing, Eames is wide-eyed.

"How?" she asks. Matthew shrugs.

"I don't know. I do know that I'm nearly eight hundred years old, and I'm not the only one of my kind."

"And you killed another one of your kind last night?"

"I didn't exactly have a choice," Matthew says defensively.

"Rivera threatened to go after one of Matthew's students." Goren is still fascinated by how quickly Matthew heals, wondering how it works. That no one can provide an answer doesn't abate the curiosity, it just means that he's not going to be able to assuage the curiosity. "And he would have killed Matthew, if he'd gotten the right chances."

"He had a chance," McCormick says. "It was a fair fight, on both sides. If he'd been better than I am, I'd be dead now."

"How? I mean, if you can survive a bullet to the heart -" Eames shakes her head. She can't deny what she's seen, but none of this makes very much sense.

"Decapitation," McCormick says gently. "We fight with swords, and the loser....loses his head." He sounds absurdly matter-of-fact, and as he sketches out the rest of it for her - the Game, the rules, all of it - that tone never wavers. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" Eames demands of her partner.

"I promised I wouldn't." Goren's expression is apologetic. "I trust you with my life, my past, but Matthew didn't have that same trust. I wasn't going to push the issue, not when it shouldn't have mattered." He would have told her eventually, once he could convince Matthew she could be trusted. That she saw them come in last night only made that happen sooner.

"I didn't exactly plan on running into another Immortal with a four hundred year old grudge against me," McCormick says apologetically. "I tried to put him off, but as Goren said, he threatened one of my students." 

"Anyone I know?" Eames is half-joking. To her surprise, McCormick answers.

"Cory Raines."

"The bank-robber?" 

McCormick looks pained, but nods. "He's damned irritating at times, but I've known him for most of my life, and I'm not going to let him take one of my fights for me."

"Apparently he's made an enemy of the Mafia in New York as well." Goren remembers that, and he's looked up what he can on the Mafia and Cory. "Matthew said he wouldn't fish Cory out of any more rivers, so he's been avoiding the city, though most of the people he'd have pissed off are dead or in prison by now."

"How many rivers have you fished him out of?" Eames asks. McCormick looks sour.

"A lot. The Thames, the Seine, the Hudson, the Potomac, the Rhine - and several others I can't remember off the top of my head." 

Eames laughs in spite of herself. "This is the same Cory Raines who was on the Most Wanted list back in the twenties?"

"The same one," McCormick acknowledges, rolling his eyes.

"He got shot along with a girlfriend, didn't he?" Goren tilted his head, watching Matthew. "Was she Immortal?"

"Yes." Matthew sighs. "And they got shot *repeatedly*." He'd known Amanda before she'd met Corwin, and when he'd heard that they'd met, he'd been absolutely appalled. "It's Corwin's favourite way to get out of being arrested, especially if there's someone around to dig him up afterwards."

"Who dug them up that time?" Goren's just idly curious at the moment, almost asking the questions more for Eames' sake than for his own. To give her a chance to hear some of the safer bits that he had.

"One of Amanda's friends, the poor bastard." Matthew is grateful beyond words that he wasn't the one who got roped into that absolutely insane road trip. "I have it on good authority that he complained the entire time, and I don't blame him. Corwin tends more towards giving away his products to various charities than to splitting them." It's probably why he and Amanda don't collaborate more often, to Matthew's intense relief.

"And - Amanda? - she doesn't." Goren leans forward, his elbows on his knees. "I've heard that name in connection with a thief before. An Amanda Derieux?"

"You really are too smart for anyone's good," Matthew tells him sourly. "And no, she generally doesn't. Of course, she specializes in jewels rather than bank robberies, and cat-burglary rather than Corwin's more...direct methods." He looks pointedly at Goren and Eames. "I'm assuming that this will all be kept confidential. Someone will notice if either of them spend twenty years in prison without aging a day."

"I don't intend to try to catch her." Goren shrugs, sitting up again. "It's more a desire not to catch her - and if we're assigned to a case which involves her, I have to know she's Immortal, so I can find ways of not catching her." Without making it obvious he was covering for someone or something.

"You really don't want to catch Amanda. She has a habit of doing mildly unpleasant and incredibly embarrassing things to people who decide to put her in jail." There was the Interpol officer who'd lost all of his case-files from 1995-2005, and the Scotland Yard investigator who'd ended up naked and handcuffed in his own office. "I haven't tried to arrest her in several centuries."

"Because you know what sort of things she'll do, and you don't want to risk it." Goren nods. "What about her friend? The one who dug her and Cory up? What's he like?"

"He's about as stand-up a guy as it's possible for one of us to be," Matthew admits. Learning that Methos had taken to hanging around with Duncan MacLeod had startled him into the sort of laughter that produced tears of mirth. "He's a good man; honourable to the point of personal pain, and scrupulously honest." He himself still owes MacLeod for a well-timed speech about forgiveness that had kept him from killing one of his students.

"Huh." Goren looks thoughtful a moment before he shrugs. "Sounds like there's at least one other Immortal out there that might be interesting to meet without it being dangerous." He looks over at Eames. "It actually makes a lot of sense of some things, once you stop to think about it. That Immortals exist."

"There are plenty of us out there that won't kill mortals if we can possibly help it," McCormick says, but Eames barely hears him; she's too busy going over old case-files in her mind, thinking about suspects who'd vanished or died or courted death deliberately, with no history of insanity in their backgrounds.

"The beheadings in 1986," she says, suddenly making the connection. "That was you guys."

"That was us," McCormick agrees, "though we don't exactly operate as a unit. Something like the opposite, actually, as a rule of thumb."

"He mentioned that in one of the first conversations we had about Immortals, the beheadings in the mid 80's, but I didn't actually hear about them. Not until he mentioned them, actually." Goren chuckles, a bit of a grin on his face a moment. He'd researched them after they got back to New York, curious about what had happened. The photos of the mess at some of the crime scenes were impressive. "The Immortals who were killed must have been old, or had taken a lot of heads, to cause that much damage."

"They were," Matthew agrees. "The Kurgan was ancient, and none of his victims were what even one of us would call 'young'."

"And what is that?" Eames asks, head tipped to one side in a manner reminiscent of her partner at his most acute. "What's the average age among Immortals, anyway?"

"I don't know," Matthew says, shrugging. "It's gone down in the past few centuries, though. Out of three of us, maybe one of us will live to see a century, if that. And that's only a guess. When the world was a larger place - when a journey from Europe to America was a months-long affair rather than a plane ride - we lasted longer, because there was less of a chance for us to run into one another, and it was harder for our enemies to catch up to us."

"And now, most of the new Immortals don't make it very long. And maybe more potential Immortals don't become Immortal? Because of longer life-spans, better medical care, faster trauma response times. All of it making it less likely for them to die a violent death."

It's a good point, and one Matthew hasn't actually considered before. 

"It varies," he says, after a few minutes. "The twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history, trauma response times notwithstanding. The number of new Immortals doesn't seem to be declining - but their lifespan is. I've been hoping for decades that you would conquer space travel, because otherwise it won't be long before Earth is too small for us."

"New Immortals wouldn't have grown up with swords as a weapon, except in movies. Guns are more common as weapons now, they'd have more to learn about fighting with a sword than in previous centuries." Goren tilts his head again. "Which makes them easy pickings for older, more experienced Immortals; those that actively hunt other Immortals, anyway."

"Very true," Matthew says, "save that Corwin and those of his social class didn't grow up wielding swords any more than today's new Immortals did. Corwin nearly cut his own foot off, the first time I handed him a blade." He pauses, reconsidering. "Of course, he'd seen them used to deadly effect for most of his life. Maybe it's that modern humans aren't as used to sudden and unexpected death. For most of my life, smallpox was one of the main dangers to continued existence. Today's children aren't even vaccinated against it. And that's just one example - polio, malaria, looting and pillaging - all those are supposed to have gone the way of the dinosaur, and in America, at least, they have. Even in Europe, where they should know better, this sort of supposition is treated as fact."

"And so new Immortals don't know how to cope with a potentially violent other life, that demands they kill simply to survive. So they falter, or they don't have the endurance to keep trying, and they lose." Goren is looking thoughtful. "Except for a few, that probably grew up in high-crime areas, or war zones, or other places where survival isn't assured. And even they don't always stand a chance against older Immortals."

"Precisely," McCormick says, and he looks tired in a way Eames can't quite define. "I grew up in a world where most children didn't make it to adulthood, for one reason or another. I'm used to death in a way that today's children will never be. And while it's a good thing, so far as mortals are concerned, it makes for weak Immortals. I lost my first wife and both of her children before meeting my first death. It's the sort of thing that would condemn a man to a life-long tragedy, today. For me - I won't say I didn't mourn, but I did move forward. I had an heir to breed, and a desmene to maintain, and mere human considerations paled by comparison. People don't think that way any longer."

"No, they don't." Goren fell silent, his expression inscrutable. Not everyone might find the death of a spouse and children as traumatic as Matthew painted for modern mortals, but certainly most would. It would effect how they lived, change how others viewed them.

"The average lifespan didn't increase because the people who made it to old age live longer," McCormick says bitterly, "but because children stopped dying so often." Eames can't help wondering how many wives he's buried, how many children he's watched die, but it seems impolite to ask, so she doesn't.

"Which is why now, it's a tradgedy when a child dies, a grief that marks anyone who's lost a child. Instead of simply one more death to mourn for a time, and then keep going with life."

"Why do you think people used to have thirteen children at once?" Matthew asks. "If they were lucky, five of them might live to see adulthood, and three might live to have children of their own." He shakes his head. "I remember being stunned by electricity; remember thinking that it would change the world, but I never expected all of this. The world was static, almost, for thousands of years, and now the only thing that's even remotely the same is that people are still *people*." He laughs shortly. "The things mortals have done in the last century are almost unbelievable - and this is coming from someone who can heal from a bullet to the head."

"Humans, mortal or Immortal, are always amazing. Always changing, adapting." Goren gets up to pace again, not particularly interested in staying still. "Maybe, some day, it won't be so much of a worry for mortals to find out about Immortals; maybe humanity will change, evolve enough not to worry about that."

"That won't happen; not until you devise a way to find Immortality on your own." Matthew knows how he sounds, but he can't help it. "If the government ever found out about us, they'd dissect us for our secrets without hesitating." He grimaces, because this isn't something he likes to share, but it emphasizes the danger that the new, technological age poses to Immortals. "I was with the British troops who were first into Bergen-Belsen. There were six of us there, and I had to kill four of them. The more explainable the world becomes, the less likely that world is to accept us as an inexplicable abberation. I've seen Immortals burned at the stake for what they couldn't help being, and it was infinitely easier than what I had to deal with all the way across Europe in the forties." Belsen wasn't the only camp that had held Immortals, but it was the first and the worst. "Humans kill things they don't understand, and since we barely understand ourselves, we've no chance if we end up being found out."

"It doesn't mean it won't happen." Goren watched Matthew, a frown on his face. "It can't happen if no one even tries to make things better, to make the chances of acceptance greater. Clinging to atrocities of the past won't help - neither will forgetting them, I understand that, but holding onto past wrongs just keeps the cycle going. Fear, distrust, hate."

"When I'm thoroughly convinced that I won't have to kill one of us because they've been eviscerated over and over for years on end, I'll consider it," McCormick says. His tone of voice is enough to make Eames realize that, really, she's been underestimating him the entire time. He's absolutely certain, not only in what he's saying but in the knowledge that no one will - no one can - argue with him. It's the tone of voice used by a man who grew up with the sort of power at his fingertips that even kings haven't got these days. "Remember, I spent a great deal of time watching mortals set one another on fire because they didn't understand what they were seeing."

"Yes, it happened!" Goren isn't about to back down. "And sometimes, yes, it still happens. It probably always will happen, somewhere, with someone. Because you can't change the entirety of humanity. But you don't have to change all of humanity just to change part of it. And you can never be certain that no one Immortal might be tortured, no more than we can be certain any particular mortal might be tortured. There's never any promises in life, no matter how long or short it is. But if you can't even try to see some hope, what's the point? Why do you even bother?"

"Because I never learned how to give up," Matthew snaps. "Because that's what you do; you fight until you can't lift your weapon, and you never give in. Do I wish we could live openly among mortals? Of course. I'd give my head if I thought it would achieve anything close to that." He's vaguely aware that the southern accent he's affected for the past three centuries is slipping away, but can't bring himself to care. "It *won't*, though. Two of the Immortals I had to kill at Belsen were *friends of mine*, damn it. Three thousand years ago, we made ourselves into your worst nightmares. Now? A gun or a taser is all you need to reduce us to helplessness. Maybe a few hundred years from now, when medical technology has reached the point where even a mortal can last for centuries, we'll be able to come clean - but I doubt it. Humans - mortal and Immortal - will always fear the unknown as much as they desire it. It's not an arrangement that leaves us much hope."

"And so you give up on what hope you might find, simply because you're afraid of the dark side of humanity." Goren knows he's raised his voice, knows he shouldn't get into Matthew's face about this, but it doesn't matter. Not because he's not afraid - there is a kernal of fear under his anger - but because he doesn't like what he's seeing. "Because you want a certainty that doesn't exist, will never exist, no matter how long you live. I think that's something you've forgotten, that Immortality has taken away from you. That life is unpredictable, that humans, no matter how well you might be able to predict them, can still surprise you. That you could be wrong about mortals, or you could be right, and you can't know which it it."

"So be it." Matthew can't remember the last time he was this shaken. "I'd rather keep hiding than condemn us all to the laboratory and the scalpel. It's not my choice, damn it; I don't get to pick. If it were, I'd be using eight hundred years of experience openly rather than secretly; wouldn't have to worry that drawing on the resources I need to catch a killer might end up exposing me. I'm eight hundred years old; seventy years is nothing, and I killed good friends seventy years ago because mortals thought they could get what we have. There's no physical difference between me and you - we've bloody well looked. I've the same DNA, the same amount of stem cells - the only difference is the Quickening, and if you think that you lot wouldn't slice us to pieces to find out where it comes from, you haven't been paying enough attention to your fellow mortals. What if exposing ourselves leads to the Gathering? Leads to the Prize being won, and one of us having absolute power over everything breathing? It's not a risk I'm willing to take, and it's for your protection as much as it is my own. There are Immortals who should not win, just as there are mortals who shouldn't take power." And if mortals do find out about them, Matthew has the nauseating certainty that it will be Methos who survives - and Methos knows more about vengeance and death than the rest of them could dream of.

"If that's even real, and not just some story made up to pit you all against each other. To keep you from trusting anyone, to make you easier to pick off, one by one, without having to raise a finger!" Goren has a dark frown on his face for a moment, before he takes a step back, his expression fading back into something less harsh, his voice lowering. "And that would make more sense than this Prize thing being real. A con, an excuse to kill as many Immortals as he or she came across."

"And what, exactly, would you have me do about it?" Matthew demands. "If the Prize is real, I have an obligation to keep it from being claimed for as long as possible. If it doesn't - what better way to defy those who would manipulate me into death than by surviving? These are not new questions; they're hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. But so long as there are Immortals who think that killing me is their way to absolute power, I'll stand in their way, sword in hand. They won't listen to reason - God knows, because I've tried to reason with them. Kill them temporarily, and you run into them two hundred years later, after they've slaughtered your wife, her children, and everyone you've cared about for twenty years. I didn't kill Rivera because he threatened me; I killed him because he threatened Corwin, and because Corwin's been one of the only constants in nearly eight hundred years of life. There's nothing I wouldn't do to keep him alive, just like I doubt there's anything you wouldn't do to keep Eames breathing. He's *family*; the only family I'll ever have, no matter how long I live. And have you considered what we could be if it weren't for the Game? We could rule this world, if we so chose, despite tasers and rubber bullets. We've the knowledge and the skill and the ruthlessness that most mortals forgot centuries ago. I know more than one Immortal who could take the world now, as it is - maybe the Game keeps us in check."

"At least protecting others is a better reason to be fighting than for some prize that might not even be real." Goren isn't sure what to think about the idea of Immortals trying to rule the world, other than he doubts that any one of them would be able to rule the entirety of it, any more than any mortal government could. And he knows there's nothing any one person, Immortal or mortal, can do to change what so many think, not easily or quickly. "If it started as a con, maybe find another one to teach new students, to try and convince other Immortals you know who aren't focused on winning some prize to pass on a different idea, a different purpose."

"It's happened before. Unfortunately, those who refuse to believe in the Game generally refuse to play, and they end up in two pieces. I don't really believe in it, and neither does Corwin, or any number of the other Immortals I know. But if a man comes at you with a blade in hand and the skill to take your head, you kill him - or the next time he comes at you, you won't have the chance." Matthew sighs. "It's brutal and ugly and likely pointless - and the alternative is as futile as trying to convince mortals that there's no afterlife. No matter where it springs from, the Game's become the sole purpose for Immortal life. I've seen enough religious wars to know better than to try anything of the sort."

* * *

Goren stepped into the hotel lobby, glad for the relative silence, and the lack of the media. Applegate had been convicted of the murders of Angela Hoess and Sarah Browning. The sentencing would be next week, but for now, they were done - he and Eames could return to New York, and Matthew to DC. At least, if he was planning to return to DC.

"Have any plans for what now?" He looked over at Matthew, a bit curious, though that was mostly overlaid with satisfaction for a job well done, and tiredness from a long day.

"It's probably time for Special Agent McCormick to be shot in the line," Matthew admits.  "I've been thinking about calling Corwin to help out, actually."  Corwin will not only appreciate it, but downright enjoy it.  "I could use a pair of reliable witnesses."

Looking over at Eames, Goren raised an eyebrow. "We could do that for you. Did you have a place or time in mind?"

"Soon.  I'm not sure where Corwin is, but he'll get here relatively soon."  Corwin owes him that much, for all of the trouble Matthew's gotten into on his account.

"And a place?" Eames reaches out to punch the button to call the elevator, stepping in when the doors opened. "Some place public enough to have other witnesses, but not so public that we can't get your body out before you revive?"

"More than likely, knowing Corwin, it will be one of those 'get an advance on your paycheck' places," Matthew says, smiling.  "He likes to not only give away his profits, but rob those places he thinks don't deserve to make a profit in the first place."  He rolls his eyes.  "Planning would probably be a good idea; otherwise, he's likely to simply ambush me in the first convenient location he comes across."

"And that could provide a less-than-ideal witness set, or response time for EMTs." Better that Matthew died en-route to a hospital, at least on paper, rather than laying there at the scene for the ME. "And one of us rides with you, the other comes to the hospital with the car so we can get you out." Goren leaned against the side of the elevator as it started up toward their floor. "Out of the morgue, then out of the city."

It's been quite a while since Matthew's had so much help in extricating himself from a particular life.  

"Usually, I just sneak out of the morgue," he admits.  Corwin's been doing just that since morgues were invented, but that doesn't make it any easier.  Matthew's ridiculously grateful to both of them.  "I'll call Corwin now."  He has the other Immortal's cell phone number, and given the rarity with which Corwin takes Quickenings, it's even likely to still be working.  Sure enough, three rings later and Matthew is listening to Corwin's obscenely cheerful voice at the other end of the line.

"Raines."

"When was the last time you changed your last name?"  Matthew asks, and is rewarded by the shock in Corwin's voice.

"Matthew?"

"Who else?  Look - it's my turn, and I'm calling in a favour..."

Eames raised an eyebrow at Goren, not as certain as he was about this idea of helping Matthew abandon his current life, his current alias. It was skirting close to illegal, and she was worried what would happen if they got caught. "There'll be cameras and security to deal with. We'd need a distraction to keep their attention while getting Matthew out."

"If we have Cory's assistance with this as well, we shouldn't have any trouble." Goren's attention was more on listening to Matthew's conversation with Cory, the part he could hear, at least. He held the door of the elevator for Matthew to step out, fishing out his key-card for the room he shared with Eames.

"You've got a pair of mortals helping you?"  Corwin is asking.  Matthew scowls at the telephone, forgetting that even in person his scowls have never done much good when it comes to his irrepressible student.

"It should only make your job easier.  You're the expert at getting out of morgues in this century," he says pointedly.  Corwin, damn him, just laughs.

"Never thought I'd see the -"

"Don't finish that thought," Matthew tells him.  "You still owe me for that briefcase you pilfered in Colorado Springs."

"I'll be in Richmond tomorrow," Corwin says, pretending to be sullen.  Matthew smirks and hangs up.

"How soon do we expect him?" Goren opens the door, holding it for Eames and Matthew. "How long do we have to plan this?"

"He'll be here tomorrow," Matthew says.  "Probably fairly early in the morning.  He's never had much concept of time, unless it relates to his heists.  As for how much time we have - that depends on whether we want Corwin's help with planning or no."


End file.
